Avatar: The Heir of Ban
by The Modern Epimetheus
Summary: Set 950 years before the show, it's the story of Avatar Zhengyi, who would rather try to reclaim his birthright as heir to a crime family than save the world. He says he wants justice, but on his journey he's going to have to decide what that means.
1. Chapter 1, Part 1

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

For Okie

* * *

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is bitterest.

- Kǒng Fū-zǐ (Confucious)

* * *

_Fire. Air. Water. Earth. My aunt used to tell me stories about the old days, when the Avatar was a paragon of righteousness and order for all the nations. I used to think that, somehow, the universe always chose a good, moral person to be the Avatar, but recently… I've started to think that maybe the world has just been lucky so far. _

_Fifteen years ago the previous Avatar died, just as the Earth Kingdom erupted into civil war between a confederation of eastern cities lead by Ba Sing Se and a confederation of western cities lead by Omashu, a development encouraged by the sanctimonious and tyrannical Earth King. Everyone thought a new Avatar would appear soon, to stop the war, depose the king, and return balance to the world with barely a wave of his hand. But the circumstances of this new Avatar's life have lead him to forsake the Avatar's duties for a selfish life dedicated to what he calls "justice," and most would call "revenge."_

_First, you have to understand the Hei Chaoliu, the Black Current of the Earth Kingdom, because that was the Avatar's world for the first fifteen years of his life. The clans of the Hei Chaoliu claimed to be mutual protection societies for the poor citizens of the Lower Ring, but that was the farthest thing from the truth. The Hei Chaoliu was the collective name for dozens and dozens of clan-based gangs, competing for illegal commodities and territory. By the time the war broke out, one clan, the Ban, was on the verge of becoming the most powerful in the city. A son—Zhengyi—was born to the head of the Ban clan. I can't help but think how much simpler the course of my life—even the course of history—would have been, if the Heir of Ban had not also been the Avatar._

* * *

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 1: The Mountain Master's Son

Ban Ti Xi's foot stamped the ground, ejecting a rock from its resting place. He shot his fist out from his hip, sending the rock at one of his sparring partners. The other man quickly erected a wedge of earth and the rock shattered on its edge. The wedge sped toward Ti Xi, but he strongly thrust both his forearms at it, raising a rock wall. His open pao fluttered from the sharpness of his movements.

Two other sparring partners swung their fists upward like weights on a chain, lifting a massive boulder into the air and positioning it above Ti Xi's head. With a crane's beak hand technique, Ti Xi broke a core out of the rock for his body to occupy. Alone for a moment in the core of the boulder, he smiled at how staunchly his retainers obeyed his order to not hold back in practice. With barely enough room to move his muscular arms at the elbows, he struck the rock's interior in several places, producing radial hairline fractures. He sent a barrage of rock sections at his sparring partners. This unexpected move neutralized nearly all of them. Ti Xi exhaled with a bridge hand. Only one of his retainers could still present any real challenge to him, and he wanted a challenge today.

Ti Xi called out to this man, who was leaning against a tree at the edge of Ban Ti Xi's training courtyard, mostly hidden by the tree's shadow, and audibly crunching on an apple. "Hey, Wu! You wanna fight? I need to practice against someone who can actually throw a rock!" Ti Xi said, charismatic as always, playfully clapping one of his exhausted sparring partners on the shoulder. Ti Xi traded a playful smile with his retainer.

Er Shi Wu's only acknowledgement of his boss's request was to step out from the shadow of the tree and toss his apple to the ground. The shadow seemed to lift off him like a curtain, exposing his green shirt on his wiry frame, his bright green left eye, and an eye-patch covering the right one. The patch bore the pygmy puma that was Ti Xi's clan insignia, and it had also prompted Er Shi Wu's nickname: "One-Eyed Wu."

Wu casually strode on to the training ground with a chuckle. "You always win, Ti Xi," he smiled.

"Not true," Ti Xi acknowledged the abilities of this man, one of his top three lieutenants. "Up until a few years ago you used to beat me all the time, remember?"

Wu nodded in assent, taking a horse stance. "Seems like a long time," he said. Ti Xi took a stance in kind.

Wu whipped his fists diagonally across his body, flinging stones at Ti Xi. Ti Xi pecked them all out of the air with his crane's beak hand. They both knew this was just a warm-up.

Ti Xi then dropped to a lower stance, and a wave of earth shot from his foot straight at Wu. Wu anticipated this. He lifted a large chunk of earth out of the ground. As Ti Xi's wave came at him, Wu spun to the side and took a drop stance. His chunk of earth spun with him and he fired it at Ti Xi. Ti Xi sprang backwards and rolled as the chunk flew over his head and shattered on the courtyard wall behind him. He got back to his feet and swung his hand in a circle behind him, raising an arc of earth aimed for Wu. Wu had already created a similar structure and was sending it toward Ti Xi.

"Mountain Master! Mountain Master!" came the winded voice of another of Ti Xi's top men, Xin Kao. He was waving a parchment clasped in the three digits of his right hand. A rival clan had cut off his right pinky and ring finger many years ago when they once captured him. They had hoped to disgrace him, as amputated fingers were the mark of a traitor among the Hei Chaoliu clans. Ti Xi had too much trust in Kao for the tactic to work, but that was how he had earned his nickname, "Kao the Claw." However, the name hardly fit Kao's avuncular appearance, with his long white beard, deep brown eyes, bald head and big gut.

Wu and Ti Xi broke off the match, allowing their earthen projectiles to melt back into the ground. "Kao, you can call me by my name," Ti Xi said. Kao had originally worked for Ti Xi's father, and Ti Xi always felt strange being addressed so respectfully by a man ten years his senior.

"Apologies, Mou—Ti Xi. But we just got news from Bian Se Long."

"Bian Se Long?" Ti Xi replied. Wu perked up his ears. Bian Se Long was a small port town near Chameleon Bay. Ti Xi had sent one of his mistresses there, ostensibly to keep her safe from rival clans. Everyone in the clan knew Ti Xi's reputation as something of a skirt-chaser, and this particular woman Wu had never met. But he and Kao were the only one's who knew the real reason Ti Xi had sent her away from the city: she was pregnant.

"Yes. I need to speak with you privately," Kao said, still sounding urgent. Wu watched the two move off together into the main house of the Ban compound as he helped the other sparring partners up. The afternoon sun blazed over the Agrarian District of Ba Sing Se and the Ban family compound, and Wu felt it despite the meager shade provided by some of the trees at the edge of the training courtyard.

A couple of the pygmy pumas which were kept around the compound as pets— mascots of sorts for the clan—skittered out of the way as Kao and Ti Xi slid open the shoji and entered the house. Ti Xi nervously ran a hand over his shaven head. "How are they?" he asked. "Are they safe?" Ti Xi looked a little pale.

"Yes," Kao smiled. "Both of them."

Ti Xi huffed in relief. Cao, already twice a father himself, chuckled at Ti Xi's reaction. "The Ban Clan will finally have an heir," Ti Xi breathed.

"Kao, I want you to go there right away in my place," Ti Xi told him. "Make sure everything goes smoothly," he said in an exited fluster. Then he remembered Kao's young daughter, only eighteen months old. "Will Fung be all right without you?"

"Her aunt at the abbey can look after her," Kao smiled at his friend. "Don't worry, Ti Xi. This is important; I want to go."

Ti Xi placed his hand on Kao's shoulder. "You're my top man. I wouldn't trust anyone else with something this important."

Kao gave an assuring nod and walked up the imposing staircase toward his suite in the massive main house of the Ban clan's compound. In order to motivate his men, Ti Xi allowed several dozens of his most senior lieutenants to live in his rather posh compound. The compound was officially a farm in the Agrarian District, but Ti Xi ran it more like a hotel or an army camp. Its several houses, especially the palatial main house, were generally much nicer than anything your average poor Hei Chaoliu gang member had ever seen. Ti Xi even allowed members to keep spouses and children with them at the compound, provided they didn't enter the city-proper. The younger clan members heard stories of it, although they were not allowed to know its location, and the prospect of such a nice living arrangement encouraged them to work up to a rank when they might finally be invited to live there.

Ti Xi stood alone in the foyer, grinning to himself for a moment. "_D__à__ g__ē_…?" came Wu's voice, snapping Ti Xi back to the present. "About the raid on the Du clan's slum tonight: the briefing will be held in the grand dining room in a few minutes."

"Thanks, Wu. I'm prepared," Ti Xi said. "Did you make the maps I asked for?"

"They're ready, Ti Xi. But I don't understand why we need to go to battle over such an insignificant piece of turf. I don't think the men will like it, Ti Xi…" Wu walked past Ti Xi, casually pausing to brush some dust off a table. "We're going to lose people we don't need to waste on something like this," he said casually, not looking up.

"I've seen that place for myself," Ti Xi said, gravely. "The people living there are poorest of the poor, and the Du clan still gouges their rents and charges them protection. If we take it over we'll get the income from all those renters, and just by charging a fair price we'll have their loyalty too. They'll pay the Ban Clan, and be glad to do it." He took a betel nut out of a bowl on the table and popped it in his mouth. "Besides, exploiting civilians—poor civilians—like that…it dishonors the Hei Chaoliu."

"Right, and the chance to play the rescuer to a few impressionable peasant girls has nothing to do with it?" Wu smirked. Ti Xi shot him a mischievous look.

Ti Xi closed his eyes and began stroking his doorknocker beard. "It's just unfortunate we have to do this without Ying Su here. I'm a little worried." Ti Xi closed his eyes and began stroking his doorknocker beard. "I'll never have another lieutenant with the tactical skill she has. She could have been in the army, you know… That's what she should be, not a crime lord's lieutenant." He sighed.

Wu clenched his jaw at the mention of Ying Su's name. She had only joined the clan two years ago after he and Ti Xi had rescued her from the Du clan, but Ti Xi had already made her a lieutenant on the same level as Wu himself. It was true she had a masterful affinity for strategy and planning, but Wu knew the same was true of him, and he hadn't been promoted so fast. He resented her as a newcomer who didn't know her place, and he chafed at the fact that Ti Xi allowed this situation to continue just for the sake of Su's abilities. She was his rival, and Wu was a talented man unused to having rivals. But they were both loyal to the Mountain Master, and neither would want to offend him by bad-mouthing the other. So, Wu bit his tongue and dissembled in front of the boss.

"You were the one who sent Su to Omashu to look for ways to expand the clan. I think you're overestimating her anyway," Wu replied. "I mean, she's is good—probably the best—but you and I don't need her just to take a patch of turf from trash like the Du."

Ti Xi laughed. "True! Go set up and make sure the men are in there."

Wu went off and Ti Xi took a few minutes to collect himself and finish chewing his betel nut before entering his dining room with his men. The betel nuts helped keep him calm. Ying Su said he chewed them too often, but it wasn't as though they were doing any damage.

* * *

The briefing went well, and the men retired for a few hours sleep. Just before dawn the Ban clan assembled to carry out the plan. Ti Xi left his compound in the Agrarian District early to meet his men in the Lower Ring and march at their head. Ti Xi was, in all things, a leader. He, Wu, and his other officers bent their way through the inner wall and met his men. They struck out from their own territory in the dim light of the half moon and the odd candle or street lamp.

Knowing of the plan in advance, Ban members of all ranks appeared out of alleys and side streets, forming up behind Ti Xi and Wu. Like a small army, the Ban members of every rank strode down the streets of Ba Sing Se's poor Lower Ring. Hei Chaoliu clans fought over sections of the city like generals in war. The Hei Chaoliu, the Black Current of Ba Sing Se, was the city's criminal underworld. All illegal dealings in the city went through at least one Hei Chaoliu clan, and usually several dozen. However, a clan could only conduct its illegal dealings in areas of the city that it kept the other clans out of. Therefore, the clans were constantly locked in brutal gang warfare. Any Hei Chaoliu member could be murdered at any time, but still their numbers swelled, especially in this era. Violent as their lifestyle was, the citizens of the Lower Ring were so desperately poor that illegal dealings were virtually the only way for them to make a half-decent living.

Ti Xi would cross though his own clan's territory, but when they entered the streets controlled by the Du clan it would be like invading a hostile nation in wartime. Anyone Ti Xi's men ran into might kill them. Gang members wore no uniforms or colors to distinguish them from "civilians"—what Hei Chaoliu members called non-members—although different gangs did often have preferred weapons, unique tattoos, or kept certain animals as mascots.

As Ti Xi marched his men through the streets of his territory, the few civilians awake and about at that time waved or saluted in some way. Some even bowed. Unlike the Du clan and many other Hei Chaoliu clans, Ti Xi did show concern for the people living in his territory. He did not bully them, charge them protection money, or charge them unreasonable rates for loans. The people in a clan's territory were the people with whom the clan did business, and as they say, you catch more beetle-flies with honey than with vinegar. Ti Xi made sure his customers trusted him with their business, and this policy had allowed him to make his clan among the most profitable in the city, though that was a position for which he constantly struggled. He was always fighting other clans as he was tonight.

Ti Xi and his men crossed a single city street and were suddenly in hostile territory. They hit the Du hard, and the raid went mostly according to plan. The Ban had the advantage of numbers. They kept the fights short and quiet. It was brutal fighting, but nothing new to these men. A knife thrust in the dark. A block and counter, then on to the next opponent. That was how the Hei Chaoliu had been for four hundred years.

Ti Xi and his men made it to the Du clan's main office in that area, a bar attached to an inn. The door busted in as Ti Xi bent a rock into it. He confidently strode into the room. Two of the Du fighters in the room rushed him with their kris knives. Ti Xi quickly dispatched them with nothing but his hands and announced himself to the others. "Bring me to the officer in charge here. I have a deal for him." Ti Xi's men flooded the room and One-Eyed Wu took a protective stance at his boss's right hand. Tense moments passed as Ban members and Du members eyed each other with drawn knives. Finally the Du boss—the head Du boss—emerged from a back room.

"Du Jungshi," Ti Xi acknowledged.

The men had met a few times before. Jungshi tended to be a bit more formal than Ti Xi, cutting a trimmer figure in a black changshan. "Ban Ti Xi," he replied. "You'll excuse me if I don't offer you any tea."

"You're as hilarious as ever," Ti Xi said sarcastically. "But that's not why we're here. I have an offer for you. If you agree, I can make you rich."

Ti Xi had not expected the head of the whole Du clan to show up in this small border district. The Du must have detected their approach. Ti Xi intended to simply push a few Du soldiers out of this neighborhood. Now the plan would have to change. He did not move a muscle, not even his eyes, though they seemed to absorb the whole room. Better to show strength now, he reasoned. He laid out an ultimatum.

"I don't like the way the Du clan does business. I will let you and your clan survive if you agree to do things my way from now on. No more protection fees for merchants. You will set the rents and loan rates I give you. You can run the operations and keep a percentage of the money, but everything gets my approval first," Ti Xi told Jungshi.

Jungshi stood up and began to pace the floor quite calmly. Ti Xi reached behind his back to grasp the kukri knife that rested in the sash at his waist, but he did not remove it. Jungshi's sleeves hung down past his hands, and he folded his arms into them.

"Well…I will have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of your offer." He was speaking slowly, belaboring words unnecessarily. "Although it is said to be dishonorable for a clan to keep its name if ruled by another family… it is also said that profit is the true goal of every clan." Very gradually, he was getting closer to Ti Xi. "My men would not like it…but then, as a leader, it is up to me to make the decisions and keep them in line." He paused. Ti Xi wondered why Jungshi was being so verbose.

Jungshi removed is hands from their opposite sleeves, but the long garment still concealed them. "Oh well. It doesn't matter anyway," Jungshi smiled devilishly.

And then Wu put a blade in his neck.


	2. Chapter 1, Part 2

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 1: The Mountain Master's Son

Part 2

"He's got a knife!" Wu yelled, referring to the already lifeless body from which he was removing his kukri. Wu had apparently just leapt across the room and drawn his weapon before Ti Xi even realized he had done it. The room exploded in shouting and fighting between the two gangs. Wu lunged at another attacking Du member. Ti Xi was stunned for just an instant, but momentarily he cut down an attacker, kicked another coming at him from behind, and threw his knife into a third. He began earthbending, and between him, Wu, and the rest of his men, all the Du members had been killed or fled within a few minutes.

Ti Xi counted his casualties. "Seventeen," he panted, and then he swore at himself. Although he recognized the necessity of it in his line of work, Ti Xi never liked losing men. Seventeen was pretty far above the normal losses for this sort of raid. "That's too many," Ti Xi said. He swore again and clenched his fists, creating small fissures in the ground at his feet. "Why did you do that?" he yelled at Wu. "I was trying to make a deal!"

Wu glared at Ti Xi but said nothing. He walked a few paces over to Jungshi's corpse and knelt next to it. He pulled back the body's sleeve, revealing some sort of strange gauntlet with a knife extending from it. The Du boss had been stalling, trying to get Ti Xi off-guard so he could stab him. And the Du always poisoned their blades. Even a scratch would have killed Ti Xi. "I saved your life," Wu told him.

Ti Xi was slightly taken aback, but at the moment he had more important things to think about. "Forget it. We'll discuss this later," Ti Xi told Wu. "Everybody outta here!" he called out to the men. He knew the rest of the Du would be out for blood when they found out their boss was dead. "Back to Ban turf!" he ordered.

This time Ti Xi and his men ran, rather than marched, back to their territory. He, Wu, and his other earthbending lieutenants made it back to the inner wall just as dawn broke. They earthbent a door in it and soon they were running through the gates of the Ban compound. When they were safely back on his property, Ti Xi finally stopped running and leaned on his knees, panting. Wu did the same.

"You shouldn't…have killed him," Ti Xi panted at Wu. "Not…like that."

"What should I…have done?" Wu replied. "He was going… to kill you."

"When you attacked…our men were caught…off guard! It's your fault we lost so many!"

"No!" the one-eyed man shot back at his friend as both men began to regain their breath. "I said it looked like a trap, but you went in anyway. What did you think would happen?" Wu did his best to reign in his anger, out of respect for his boss, but he was not very successful. They continued their argument as they walked through the dewy garden up towards the main house. "You have to stop thinking you can fix this city, Ti Xi. It's nothing but one big, worthless garbage pit! It was a pit before you were born, and it'll be a pit after you're dead!"

"The point is, you disobeyed your Mountain Master. You knew the plan was to avoid a fight and you outright assaulted the Du boss. That's a violation of your oath," Ti Xi said, sliding open the shoji for Wu. He paused, wearing a cold, stern look on his broad face. "I would be within my rights if I chose to kill you right now."

Wu looked at his boss with his one green eye. The moment was as heavy as a stone.

"Forget it," Wu said. "What's done is done." He stepped inside, and Ti Xi followed him. Without saying anything else, Wu stalked upstairs to his quarters. Lucky Cho, the clan's bookish accountant, followed at Wu's heels, yapping inquiries about the details of the raid.

Ti Xi, too tired to walk up to the master bedroom, sank onto a couch in the foyer and soon fell asleep. Ti Xi liked his sleep, and it was a joke among his men that he could sleep anywhere.

Ban Ti Xi laid low for the next few months. He did not leave his compound and did not mobilize his men, for fear of reprisals by the Du clan. Most of the rest of the world had currently become distracted by the news that Avatar Maiara of the Southern Water Tribe had just passed away, and a new Avatar would soon be born into the Earth Kingdom, but the Hei Chaoliu clans did not care about such things. The Du would certainly still be planning their revenge. Ti Xi spent most of the time sparring with his men in the courtyard, while One-Eyed Wu looked over the clan's financial records. He came to Ti Xi with unnerving news he had discovered.

"Look at this!" he said, bursting out of the back door to the main house with a scroll in his hand. Ti Xi quickly knocked down his last two opponents in order to turn his attention to his retainer. Wu didn't even pause. He threw open the scroll. "Here, look at these numbers. Look how much money we spent preparing the raid last week! And we didn't even capture the territory! _D__à__ g__ē_, you can't keep running the clan like this!"

Ti Xi just looked at the scroll and shook his head at his cyclopic colleague. "Wu, we have to make the public view us as a good influence on the community." He walked over to the bowl on the table and popped a betel nut in his mouth. "If we had captured that neighborhood all those people would be doing their business exclusively with us. As long as we treat the public well, they'll continue to do business exclusively with the Ban clan."

"I understand that, Ti Xi, but we're a crime syndicate. Do you think we're righteous bandits in a marsh or something, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor? You can't be a Mountain Master _and_ a philanthropist," Wu admonished him. "You counted our losses last week yourself. Can you at least think about being a little more pragmatic?"

Ti Xi spoke calmly, but there was anger on the edges of his voice. "I protect my clan brothers. Don't imply otherwise. And I am the leader of this clan." Ti Xi narrowed his eyes. "So offer advice if you want, but I decide how this clan will operate. Period." Another Chaoliu boss might have killed such an insubordinate underling, but Ti Xi and Wu were friends, and had known each other for years. Ti Xi trusted him and valued his input, but this argument had been coming up between them a lot.

He was about to speak, but at that moment he heard a knock at the compound's main door. Ti Xi nodded to a low-ranking retainer, who moved to open the door. It swung open and standing there was Xin Kao, finally returned from Bian Se Long. He was holding something wrapped in a yellow blanket.

"Kao?" Ti Xi asked, turning toward the doorway.

"Mountain Master," Kao entered the courtyard, "I present to you the heir of Ban," Kao smiled, handing Ti Xi a sleeping baby boy.

The suddenness of this new arrival set off quite a bit of whispered chattering among the other retainers present, especially since none but Kao and Wu had even known Ti Xi was expecting.

Ti Xi, seemingly stupefied by the novelty of so suddenly having a clan heir to care for, unconsciously let his jaw hang slack as he took the child from his friend. The little round-faced baby yawned peacefully.

"Have you chosen a name?" Kao asked.

Ti Xi looked at his friend, then back at his son. He thought. "Zhengyi," he said finally. "Ban Zhengyi…my heir."

"So, who's the mother?" Wu grinned mischievously, craning his neck to get a look at the kid.

Ti Xi laughed. "I don't kiss and tell."

Wu understood the practice of clan heads keeping the identities of their wives, mistresses, or offspring secret from other clans. Anyone close to a clan head became possible targets for rival clans. In addition, Hei Chaoliu families were like royal families in many respects, one of which was the ability to use intermarriage for diplomacy. Of course, that was mostly academic with Ti Xi. He was too much of a philanderer to keep to one woman, even if she was the mother of the clan heir. _He's probably hiding her from his other girlfriends around the city as much as from the Du or Tong_, Wu thought with a grin Wu still wondered why Ti Xi couldn't let his own second-highest lieutenant at least know who she was. But if Ti Xi hadn't told him by now, he wasn't going to.

"There is, uh, something else you should know, Mountain Master," Kao said. "I have reason to believe your son was born within moments of Avatar Maiara's death." If anyone in Ti Xi's employ cared to keep track of when the previous Avatar had died, it was Kao. Although he had been born poor and was forced to become a gangster out of necessity, he was still a spiritual person and tried to help Ti Xi enforce a code of honor in his clan. He was a devotee of one of the main Earth spirits, Jian Lao, and his sister was a nun at a nearby abbey dedicated to that spirit. "As you know, there are hundreds of candidates every time a new Avatar is born…but it is _possible_ that this child is the next Avatar."

"Incredible!" Wu said. An heir to the clan was one thing, but this news really set off a din of conversation among the men.

"I'm already in touch with an old spiritualist friend of mine," Kao explained, "but the child can't be tested until he's a few months old, when he can crawl on his own."

"Ah, don't get excited," Ti Xi said, looking over his shoulder at his men. "I'm just glad he's healthy. I mean, do you really think the universe would allow the next Avatar to be born the son of a crime boss?" he laughed.

Ti Xi spent the next long while playing with his new baby, apparently quite glad of the diversion from the usual sordid Hei Chaoliu business. Of course, when it came time to feed, burp, and change the baby, Ti Xi was just as glad to delegate the task to Kao. But then, what good are retainers if you don't use them?

Things went on this way for another few months, until Zhengyi was about seven months old. During the day, Ti Xi left Zhengyi in the care of the wife of one of the clan officers who lived at the compound so that he could go back to business as usual. Ti Xi usually had an audience with his liaison officer, whose job was to bring the boss messages from his customers or other clans in the city. This was held in the massive main dining room, sometimes called the "throne room" by the men, because of the ornate chair the boss sat in whenever he held these audiences. Ti Xi used this room for many functions, including promotion ceremonies and planning attacks on other clans.

On this day, Ti Xi was holding such an audience. Kao stood at the right side of the chair petting a pygmy puma. Wu crunched on an apple at the boss's left as the liaison officer blandly read the requests. "From one Mr. Sheng Bing Nu, of the Lower Ring:" the officer read, his eyes ticking up and down the lines on the paper. "He took out a loan last month...da, da, da"—the officer skipped the less important information—"daughter's fallen ill… herbalists charge so much…da, da, da… ah! He says he doesn't need any more money, but he can't pay on time. He wants a two-month extension." He looked up at Ti Xi, waiting for a decision.

"He had plenty of time to pay," Wu sneered.

Ti Xi raised his left hand to silence Wu. "I'll give Mr. Sheng a two month extension. But no longer," Ti Xi said. Wu rolled his eye and took a large bite out of his apple.

Suddenly, one of Ti Xi's younger lieutenants rushed into the room.

"_D__à__ g__ē_, Ying Su is back! She's back from Omashu!" he announced excitedly. Momentarily, a woman walked past him. She was beautiful, with flowing black hair, a bright, round face, and sharp eyes of brown. Her black qun skirt swayed at her heels as she strode toward the throne. Ti Xi strode over and embraced her convivially.

"How are you?" Ti Xi asked. "How was your trip?"

"Oh...it was fine," the Ban consigliore replied. Ying Su was another good friend and retainer of Ti Xi. The Mountain Master had given her an advisory position because of her preternatural skill for martial strategy. Although she was a beautiful and elegant woman, Ying Su had a general's mind.

"Really?" Wu interrupted skeptically, swallowing a bite of apple. "Because as I hear, the people in Omashu don't really care for people from Ba Sing Se these days. I heard they were thinking of replacing the Earth King with their own guy. We might even be going to war soon. But it was really still fine?"

Wu hoped to draw her out and make her look foolish, as the many gang officers in the room were now watching their exchange. "I used an assumed identity, obviously," Ying Su told him.

"We need you back, Su," Ti Xi told her. "We tried to take some Du territory a few months ago and we completely failed."

"Well, I'm back now. If my Mountain Master wishes, I'll start putting the logistics together immediately. This year we'll wipe them out and make the Ban _THE _clan in this city!" she said, more to the assembled clan members than to Ti Xi.

Ti Xi smiled at her. "Su, have you met the heir to our clan yet?"

Ying Su gasped. "So we have an heir at last? I'd like nothing more, Mountain Master." They began chatting as Ti Xi escorted her from the room.

As Kao put his puma down and took Ti Xi's place on the throne to see to the remaining requests, Wu took another bite of his apple.

A few requests later, the retainer who had announced Ying Su's arrival came to Kao with another announcement. "Deputy Mountain Master, Spiritualist Kei Guan has arrived, " he proclaimed. Dressed in formal green and white robes, and carrying a large sack, the spiritualist approached Kao on the throne.

"Kei Guan, old friend!" Kao said, rising from the chair with barely-noticeable effort.

"Xin Kao, how are you?" the spiritualist asked, hefting his sack.

Kao approached him. "Old," he joked. They laughed.

"You must show me to this child. I've brought the Avatar relics all the way from Taku. I just tested a newborn there." Kei Guan moved in closer to Kao, lowered his voice. "You know, other spiritualists are going to be quite…er, surprised…if this crime lord's son turned out to be the Avatar. If I didn't know you, Kao, I would have to agree that a future Avatar should not be left to grow up in this environment."

"I'll look out for him. Don't worry, Zhengyi probably isn't even the Avatar," Kao said. "He will be tested this evening. Make yourself at home for now." He motioned to another retainer, "Lucky Cho, show Kei Guan to his room."

That evening, Ti Xi and a few of his friends were assembled in the courtyard, under the setting sun, standing on the bare earth. He had dismissed most of his men, other than Ying Su, Cao and his daughter Fung, Wu (and one of his apples), a few pygmy pumas, and of course Kei Guan and Zhengyi. Ti Xi bounced Zhengyi in his arms as he spoke to Ying Su, but momentarily Kei Guan emerged from the house with his satchel, and everyone fell silent. Kei Guan walked out into the courtyard ceremoniously. He opened his sack and placed almost a hundred toys on the ground. The inside of the sack was in fact an embroidered blanket, and this he placed before the toys. He took Zhengyi from Ti Xi and placed him on the blanket.

Everyone waited expectantly for the baby to do something. First, he spent a few minutes trying to suck his toes. Eventually he noticed the toys and crawled over. He picked up a toy wooden hog-monkey. Then a tiny drum on a handle. Then a toy turtle, and finally a whirlybird toy that flew with a string.

As Zhengyi sat among his chosen toys sucking on the turtle, Kei Guan looked to Ti Xi with wide eyes. "Your son…is the Avatar," he whispered, sinking to his knees to bow to the baby.

Everyone there stared at the child. "_Ai-yah_…" Su breathed. Wu's apple dropped right out of his hand.

Ti Xi's eyes widened at his son. He found himself with his hand over his mouth, pensively kneading the flesh around his jaw. He was a Mountain Master is the Hei chaoliu. He had killed men and seen friends killed, but right now he was as scared as he had ever been. Would the clan be in more danger because of this? Would Zhengyi? Would they have to keep him hidden from the world? Should they? Would he be taken away from them if word got out?

_The Avatar, born into the Hei Chaoliu._ Nothing like this had ever happened before. Ti Xi turned to Kao. "What does this mean for us?"

Kao was as surprised as any of the others, but he was mostly able to keep his head. "I think you should take the rest of the night to think. He's your son, Ti Xi. We'll be better prepared to figure things out tomorrow. You ought to put the baby to bed."

"I'll do it," Wu volunteered. Ti Xi casually nodded in assent, still distracted. Su looked at him suspiciously for a moment, but followed Ti Xi inside to attend him.

Wu walked over and lifted the young Avatar under the armpits. He looked at the little baby as he climbed the ornate main staircase up to the nursery room. The sun was just about to disappear and it bathed the room in orange light as Wu entered. "Xiǎo Zhengyi," he said, grinning, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."


	3. Chapter 1, Part 3

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 1: The Mountain Master's Son

Part 3

Ti Xi tossed and turned in his bed, unable to sleep. By this time it was well into the night, and even the rowdy gangsters of the Ban Clan had mostly gone to bed. But Ti Xi couldn't. He left his room and wandered down the hall, hoping to see his son. Even the several pygmy pumas who usually wandered the house were strangely absent, off somewhere. Ti Xi saw only one cub. He picked it up and petted it as he entered the nursery. Moonlight streamed through the window and lit the room well enough to see.

Ti Xi held the puma cub in one hand and placed the other on the edge of the bassinet as he watched his sleeping child. Within one day his life had changed more than he could have imagined.

All of a sudden he heard yelling. Then came the ringing of a large iron bell that stood near the front gate, an alarm signal for the compound. Ti Xi put the puma kitten on the ground and ran into the hallway. "—the compound! The Du found us! They're attacking! Defend the compound!" One-Eyed Wu yelled, running into the foyer below the stairs. Ti Xi ran into his room, threw on a shirt and sash, and grabbed his kukri. He raced down the stairs and straight out the front door, flanked by some of his men.

The Ban compound covered several acres of farmland, but it was all walled in to preserve the clan's privacy in their illegal dealings. Still, anyone who was set on getting in and had the right equipment could get past the perimeter. The main defense of the compound was its location. It was hard to locate because it was outside Ba Sing Se proper, and Ti Xi made sure its location was a carefully guarded secret. Even the lower-ranking members of his own clan did not know precisely where it was. But at that moment there was no point in wondering how the information had gotten out. The Du clan was working its way through the fields surrounding the houses and barns at that very instant.

Ti Xi sprinted through the lawn and garden just outside the house, and entered the forest of high wheat stalks. In the crush of scrambling clan retainers, Ying Su saw him and ran to catch up. "Ti Xi!" she called over the yelling.

"Su? Are you all right?" Ti Xi asked, grabbing her arms.

"Yes, I—"

"I need you to protect Zhengyi. Get to the nursery."

"You need me at your side!"

"I am the Mountain Master of this clan, and I'm giving you a direct order! Protect him!" Ti Xi bent a wave of earth under her, gently carrying her toward the house. "Go!"

Ying Su reluctantly obeyed, slowly turning from Ti Xi and running into the house, her qun flapping with urgency.

Ti Xi entered the wheat field just outside the house and moved furtively through the stalks, hoping to disguise his position. He noticed movement, two men to his left. He bent a three-fingered gauntlet of rock around his forearm, slowly approaching the men. As soon as he saw them and confirmed that they were not with the Ban clan he attacked, firing his rock gauntlet into their chests before they could even react. He took Du fighters out one by one as they tried to approach his house. He surprised them from behind, leaping out of the tall stalks and snapping their arms or necks. He feared for his son and fought much harder than he normally did. He was like a man possessed.

* * *

Kao had barely had time to drop his daughter in the nursery before rushing outside to fight the Du. While most Ban members fought with kukri knives, Kao could no longer hold one because of his missing digits. He was also a non-bender, and consequently he fought with a pata, a gauntlet that strapped over the forearm and had a blade built into it.

He put this weapon on his bad hand and tightened the leather strap with his teeth as he rushed into the courtyard. Some of the Du were already climbing over the wall. They dropped to the ground and drew their poisoned kris knives. They rushed at Kao, but he only walked toward them, calmly, probably just to move the fight a little further from the house. "Jian Lao, forgive me this," Kao breathed.

The first man brought his knife down in an overhead strike, but Kao blocked and knocked his weapon away. Kao cut him across the chest.

More Ban members rushed into the courtyard to match the rabble of Du fighters rushing over the wall. There was a ruckus of kukris meeting kris knives as Cao turned to face another attacker.

* * *

Ying Su passed dozens of Ban fighters rushing out of the compound. Some were cursing in anger, some were exited for a real fight. All she knew was that she had to protect Zhengyi. She hated to leave Ti Xi like that, but he was right: Zhengyi was more important. Like the Earth King's dynasty, the Ban family needed an heir or the clan they ran would disintegrate. Besides, Su was perhaps Ti Xi's most loyal follower. Nothing could make her disobey him.

She flew through the crowd of people and sprinted up the stairs two at a time to get to the nursery. The moonlight was bright, and as she entered she could see Zhengyi in his crib and hear him crying. She sighed in relief. The Du hadn't made it into the house yet.

She wondered why this attack had happened. There was no way the Du could have learned of the location of Ti Xi's compound. All official records listed it as a farm, and no outsiders knew its location. It was filled with Ban retainers, but they were all high-ranking officers who had proven their loyalty. The rank-and-file members all lived within the inner wall, in their own homes in Ba Sing Se proper. Anyone stupid enough to give it away didn't know where it was. Su's analytic, tactical mind started to kick in. Only the nuns of the Bixia Abbey, which was just down the road, and Ban retainers knew the location of this headquarters. It was highly unlikely that the nuns had anything to gain by divulging the location. But it was not uncommon for Chaoliu clans to use spies. One of the Ban retainers must have been the Du's inside informant. But who?

Su heard another baby in one of the cribs, and saw that it was Kao's daughter, Fung. Su picked up Zhengyi and rocked him to try and calm him down. She could hardly blame him for crying though. Standing there in the dark, surrounded by the screams of dying men and the sound of flesh being cut, she felt very much like crying herself.

* * *

One-Eyed Wu rushed out the front door of the compound to where the crop fields began a few yards away. The Du were starting to emerge from the tall stalks. This was the bulk of their force, and many Ban retainers took up positions in the same area to meet this force and support Wu.

Wu himself wasted no time in breaking out his fiercest earthbending techniques. He was one of the best fighters the Ban had. He dispatched Du fighters left and right, hammering them with thrown rocks, as only the finest coating of sweat began to form on his brow.

* * *

The next armed attacker approached Kao, making short, quick swipes of his kris as though he were in a knife fight on the street. He lunged with his right hand. Kao took a single step to the left to avoid it. Middle-aged as he was, Kao practiced a very efficient style of fighting so as not to waste any energy. With one thrust, he impaled the attacker's knife hand on his pata. The young man howled. Kicking him in the chest, Kao dislodged his blade.

Suddenly the ground below him exploded, launching him a few yards away. One of these Du was an earthbender. Cao hit the ground and rolled a few times. People were yelling all around him. Dazed but still thinking quickly, he picked himself up just in time to dodge a column of earth zooming across the courtyard at him. He locked eyes with the well-muscled Du earthbender. The earthbender steeled himself. He fired punch after punch, each issuing a chunk of earth. Xin Kao moved no faster than a walk, but he sidestepped each projectile with lighting quickness. He was not shaken as the columns passed within inches of his face. He came perilously close to the earthbender. The bender made a more elaborate motion. Three four-foot chunks of earth rose up, partially surrounding Cao. They raced towards him. Cao stood motionless, waiting. The rocks were about to crush him.

Then he jumped. He went straight up, higher than a man his age should have been able to jump. As soon as the rocks collided together, he landed on top of them. The moonlight glinted on his pata. "Jian Lao forgive me," Cao the Claw breathed again. He launched himself toward the earthbender. Cao somersaulted on the ground just in front of him, uncurling as his blade found its mark inside the attacker.

* * *

A last line of four Du members charged at One-Eyed Wu, rattling their poisoned knives. Wu bent tendrils of earth around one of the attackers, pulling him to the ground. Wu moved his foot subtly, and the Du, unable to move, slid into the field of crops. He was concealed by the tall stalks. No one, Du or Ban, seemed to notice that Wu had left him alive.

Noting from their movements that all the rest were also non-benders, Wu decided he would not bother to make the effort of putting up a fair fight. He bent earth around their feet and locked their legs to the ground simultaneously. He lifted his fist, restraining the Du fighters further with collars of rock extending out of the ground. The two men and one woman struggled in vain. Wu watched them squirm.

He drew his fist back toward his body. A column of rock burst out of the ground and struck the first man square in the back. It broke his spine, killing him.

Wu moved to the next Du in line, the woman. She struggled, knowing what was coming, but she was powerless. Wu killed her and the fourth man in the same way.

He surveyed the scene, making sure there were no Du fighters remaining. Many of the Ban fighters around him were injured. A few were dead. Wu looked knowingly at one Ban member in particular, his flunky, Lucky Cho. Lucky Cho nodded at him.


	4. Chapter 1, Part 4

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 1: The Mountain Master's Son

Part 4

Cho returned to main house, asking after Kei Guan to the retainers guarding it. They pointed him to a guest room inside. Kei Guan was hurriedly packing the Avatar relics back into the sack.

"Kei Guan! Ti Xi sent me to escort you back into the city," Cho told him.

Kei Guan finished packing. "The Avatar Relics must be kept safe," he said, shouldering the sack and following Lucky Cho out the back door.

Baby Zhengyi was wailing, understandably disturbed by the sounds of battle outside. Chaoliu members constantly claimed, true or otherwise, that they were prepared to die at any time, and yet the baby's reaction seemed more appropriate to the violence going on around him, despite the fact that he couldn't understand what was happing. As a crimelord's consigliore, Ying Su did not have a strong knowledge of lullabies, but she thought one might be appropriate now. She could still remember one her father used to sing to her. She looked at the child in her arms. She began:

"Yáo yā yáo _Rock-a-bye_

Yáo yā yáo" _Rock-a-bye_

Ti Xi threw himself from one Du fighter to the next, taking on every comer with a righteous, protective fury. Ti Xi used his gauntlet of rock to extend the force and reach of his punch, firing it off his arm and drawing it back like a piston. This was a technique particularly associated with the Hei Chaoliu, and not unknown to the Du. One Du bender came at Ti Xi with that tactic. As he fired his punch, Ti Xi bent the stone off of his arm. Ti Xi fused it to the ground. The attacker was pulled off balance. Ti Xi kicked his knee. The bender's leg buckled under him. Ti Xi grabbed his face and smashed the back of his head into the ground.

As Ti Xi stood up, he noticed the flow of Du fighters seemed to have ebbed. No more men with knives were rushing at him. He looked into the night, and a cold wind howled out of the darkness. It chilled him. He did not want to let himself shiver, but he did.

He heard moans and yells all around him, mainly from the direction of the compound. He turned towards them, ready to rush back to his son. Suddenly Wu appeared out of the darkness, placing his hands on Ti Xi's shoulders. "Whoa! You all right?" Wu asked.

"Wu, what's going on? Did the Du go?" Ti Xi barked.

Wu nodded, breathing heavily. "Yeah. I think we beat them back."

"Bǎo bǎo huái zhěng shuì" _Sleep, you're safe with me_

Zhengyi's crying began to stop. His eyelids fluttered.

Cho and Kei Guan ran briskly away from the Ban compound, weaving through the gaps between crop rows somewhere in the Agrarian Zone.

"Do you think they followed us?" Kei Guan asked, looking around.

"I doubt it," Lucky Cho replied. "I think we're safe. Actually, we can probably rest if you need to."

"Are you sure?" Kei Guan pressed, panting.

"We have enough time to catch our breath. We can take cover in these stalks for a little extra concealment," Cho said, nodding to the wheat row inches to their left.

Kei Guan brushed aside the stalks and entered, placing his pack down. As he turned his back, Lucky Cho lifted his shirt and removed knife from his belt. Its blade glinted in the moonlight. "You'll be safe here," he said.

Zhengyi's crying lessened, and finally gave out.

"Yáo nǐ zhǎng dà" _Rock you 'til you're big_

"I don't understand. How could they have found out where the compound was?" Ti Xi asked. "Did someone rat us out?"

Wu's expression hardened. He turned his back to Ti Xi and squeezed his knuckles. "Oh yeah," he growled, "and I know exactly who it was."

"Who?" Ti Xi asked, more puzzled than angry.

Zhengyi finally fell asleep, but Su continued to sing.

"Yo liao shiwang" _Rock you 'til you're strong_

Wu wheeled around. Instantly, there was a blade between Ti Xi's ribs. He looked down, and saw that it was Wu who held it. Wu threw his other arm around Ti Xi, pulling him close. He brought his lips to Ti Xi's ear. "It was me," he whispered. He thrust the knife again. Blood trickled over Ti Xi's bottom lip. Wu withdrew the knife. Ti Xi staggered backwards once, then fell over, dead.

Wu knelt over him and slid his eyes closed. "I'm sorry, _d__à__ g__ē_."

"Bao bao kuai jang da" _Baby grow up soon_

Kao was organizing men into perimeter patrols when Wu ran up. "Kao, hurry, Ti Xi's captured one of them! He told me to come get you!" Kao sent the other men off and ran after Wu. "Over here," Wu said leading him away from the compound. Wu panted loudly, and gradually began to reduce his pace. "Go on," he told Kao, waving his hand. "He's just ahead there." Kao moved forward calling out to Ti Xi. Wu continued to make his breathing sound labored. Steadily, as quietly as possible, Wu bent a small, pointed piece of rock from the ground, only a few inches long. He elevated it to the level of Kao's head.

"Where is he? I don't see him," Kao said, focused on scanning the darkness for shapes or motion. He did not turn around.

Wu grinned. "Oh, you'll see him." He thrust his fist out and the projectile sped toward its target.

Su's voice began to falter as she became increasingly unnerved by the silence. She more spoke than sang the song's last line.

"Bao bao kuai jang da" _Baby grow up soon…_

"I found him! Here's the one!" Wu announced to the Ban retainers the next morning. They were reeling from the death of their leader, and still grieving and enraged over the Du attack. Unless someone took charge and organized the clan quickly, it would not survive. The retainers were all looking for the culprit. They didn't know who could have killed their powerful leader, but many of them had suspected treachery.

Now, however, it seemed Wu had found the assassin. The men all gathered just outside the main door, from where Wu's voice came. He was dragging a Du member—the man he had spared and hidden in the field the night before—through that same field. "I caught him trying to escape through the crops," Wu told them, dumping the Du to the ground between the assembled Ban retainers and where the stalks began.

"No, listen, he—" the Du stammered at them.

"Shut up!" Wu said, socking him in the mouth. "Don't try to lie to us, you filthy Du! We know you killed our Mountain Master!" Wu drew his knife and seized the man by the chin.

_He couldn't have killed Ti Xi. Look at him_, Ying Su thought. She looked at the Du through eyes blurred with tears, but it was obvious to her that someone so weak-looking and scrawny could not have killed Ti Xi.

Su wanted to find Ti Xi's killer, perhaps more than anyone else there. But these men were career criminals, trained to take orders. They would choose the most convenient scapegoat. Su, with her tactical mind, would not allow herself to stop unti she ferreted out the truth.

She could not shut down her tactical mind. It seemed to her that, in addition to Ti Xi, all the most intelligent and most loyal retainers—beside herself—had been assassinated too.

Wu now moved in front of the man and lifted a knife to his face, obscuring Su's view of whatever violent action he was now taking. The Du retainer howled horribly though, and the Ban members cheered.

_There's no way someone like him had the guts to kill a clan head. Besides, _Su reasoned_, the Du couldn't have known the location of the compound in the first place. If they had an assassination planned they wouldn't have attacked the place head-on._

Wu continued grandstanding for the men. "Let every clan in the city know the fate of those who harm—who think they can harm—our clan!" Wu kicked the man in the stomach. "Because we will move on from this tragedy. The Ban clan lives on! ...Unlike this pathetic Du!" One-Eyed Wu stepped back from the prone man. He got into a deep stance, beginning to earthbend.

Ying Su turned away. She needed to get herself and Zhengyi away from here as soon as possible. Zhengyi was his son, and she had only joined the clan because he had advocated for her. She didn't know what would happen to the two of them without him.

As she entered the house, she heard the Ban retainers cheer again. It drowned out the dying screams of that Du member. And she heard Wu going on: "As the ranking officer, I humbly take on the mantle of Mountain Master of the Ban clan. But the Spirits have been merciful to our clan, and the Ban family line has not been broken. An heir has been delivered to us just in time, and I will only be acting as a caretaker of this position, until our late boss's son is old enough to lead his clan."

Su froze. She knew who had killed Ti Xi.

The group of Ban lieutenants parted for Er Shi Wu as he left the corpse on the ground and strode into the house, brushing right past Su's shoulder. A few men disposed of the corpse while the others walked past the stock-still Ying Su to go about their business in the house. Wu picked up an apple from a bowl on a table and took a loud bite, staring at Su. The two of them were soon left alone in the foyer.

"I know you killed Ti Xi, Wu," Ying Su said in a hushed voiced, marching over to him. Wu could feel the venom in her voice, but he just calmly took another bite of his apple. "I know you revealed the location of the compound to the Du. You used them as a scapegoat while you killed Ti Xi so you could take over the clan and raise Zhengyi. You killed Ti Xi because his son is the Avatar, and you want to exploit his power for yourself," she said, adding confidently, "I figured it all out, Wu."

Wu applauded softly on the heel of his hand, still holding his apple, mocking her. He smiled wickedly. "Good. I know you figured it all out. I expected it. That's why I didn't kill you last night. See, you're a good strategist. I need you in order to keep winning battles with the other clans. That's why you're going to continue to advise me."

"I'll never help you! I'm going to expose you to the men right now," Su spat.

"Do you think they'll believe you? I worked for this clan for fifteen years, you've worked here for—what?—one-and-a-half? And you've been gone for the past seven months. Who do you think they're more loyal to?"

Ying Su dropped her eyes, realizing that he was right. Wu triumphantly took another bite out of his apple. Juice dribbled from his lips. "I know you were devoted to the boss. You looked at him as a father, like a Hei Chaoliu underling should. Now all that's left of him is his son." He wiped the juice from his chin. "So, if you expose me to the men, or sabotage me with bad advice, I'll lose my position, and then I won't need you or the Avatar anymore." He grabbed Ying Su's chin, forcing her to look at him, but he did not raise his voice. "If that happens, I'll kill you, and I'll throw that kid off the Wall." Wu paused, just staring the woman down. "From this moment on, you _will _do as I say. Am I understood?"

Su was crying for Ti Xi, but with Wu staring into her eyes she hated looking at all weak. She clenched her jaw, almost wanted to will her tears to draw back into her ducts. After a moment, with no other choice, she nodded. Wu took another crunching bite out of his apple, and it seemed so loud to Ying Su that she had to wince at it. "Go clean up the blood around here," Wu ordered her. Just then, Zhengyi began to cry upstairs. "—But take care of that kid first."

Wu walked off, eating his apple, and Su somberly trudged upstairs and into the nursery. She picked up the little boy and rocked him gently in her arms. She saw one pygmy puma cub napping in the corner, and Kao's baby girl still asleep in the next cradle. Su would have to leave her with her aunt at the abbey as soon as she could. She looked back at Zhengyi.

Wu thought he could control Zhengyi, but Su was Hei Chaoliu strategist. She knew something about controlling people as well, and she knew she could counteract Wu's influence. Wu thought he had already won, and Su knew that was why he was vulnerable. As she looked down at the young Avatar, bouncing him back to sleep in her arms, she began to formulate a plan. She would make Wu regret leaving her alive. She would bide her time, staying close to Zhengyi, making sure Wu never controlled him completely. She had missed her chance to save Ti Xi, but she would make sure she took her chance to avenge him, no matter how far in the future it came. She remembered Ti Xi's last orders, which honor and something more bound her to carry out: "_Take care of him while I'm gone_."

"Zhengyi…You will be your father's justice."


	5. Chapter 2, Part 1

_Fire. Air. Water. Earth. For thousands of years, the Avatar has been a paragon of righteousness and order to all nations. But fifteen years ago, an Avatar was born into the Hei Chaoliu, organized gangs that all but held Ba Sing Se captive. Since then, civil war has erupted between Ba Sing Se and Omashu over which great city deserves to lead the Earth Kingdom, and the influence of the Hei Chaoliu gangs has only increased. Only the Avatar can stop the war, depose the corrupt Earth King, and return balance to the world. But the circumstances of Avatar Zhengyi's birth have lead him to forsake the Avatar's duties for a selfish life dedicated to what he calls "justice" and most call "revenge." The world waits as he struggles to choose between his two roles: the Avatar, and the Heir of Ban. But I believe Zhengyi can save the world…_

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 2: The Godfather

Part 1

In the fifteen years since Er Shi Wu took over as Mountain Master of the Ban clan he had become one of the most well-known people in Ba Sing Se, although it was mainly by his handle, "One-Eyed Wu". Other than the Earth King and a few nobles, he was the richest man in the city, maybe the whole Earth Kingdom. Rumors of criminal activity always swirled around him, but they were never proven.

Publicly, he was a successful merchant, but anyone in the Hei Chaoliu knew—or almost knew—who One-Eyed Wu really was. They knew a man who had taken over the largest clan in the city when the previous boss was killed by the Du clan. After several years, Wu had wiped out the remnants of the Du clan and proceeded to use violence to take funds and territory from nearly all the other clans. From almost 50 clans 15 years ago, there were now less than ten left. Under Wu, the Ban had absorbed or wiped out all the rest. Wu was known for his fierce, incredibly skillful earthbending abilities and his willingness to use violence as an intimidation tactic.

He had become a local celebrity in Ba Sing Se, and like all larger-than-life figures, rumors and urban legends about him had begun to crop up. One told by members of rival clans, and which Wu himself particularly liked, went this way: Yanluo, Lord of the Underworld, had appeared to Wu and offered to give him the power of a demon in exchange for his soul. However, Wu was so threatening that Yanluo became frightened and decided to charge him only his right eye for that power.

* * *

Zhengyi's foot stamped the ground, ejecting a rock from its resting place. He shot his fist out from his hip, sending the rock at his earthbending tutor. The other man quickly erected a wedge of earth and the rock shattered on its edge. The wedge sped toward Zhengyi. He thrust both his forearms at it and a rock wall rose up to block it. "Don't bore me with this kid stuff, Shi Hua," he teased, a grin spanning his broad face.

Shi Hua made some uppercuts, each lifting a rock out of the ground. He kicked each one at Zhengyi. The young Avatar's green vest fluttered as he dodged each one, exposing his bare chest and the tattoo of a growling pygmy puma on his right pectoral muscle. He smashed the last two projectiles on diagonal columns of rock he erected. "So it's just the same old rock-throwing?" Zhengyi mocked. With a flip of his thick arms, he twined the two columns together and sent them careening toward his tutor. "What do you think I am, a kid?" The sunlight glinted on the metal studs in his black leather wrist bracers.

Shi Hua saw the rock formation arcing overhead. He bent a curved trench out of the ground and rode a wave of earth through it, closing the distance between himself and his student. "I know a thing or two," he shot back at Zhengyi. He angled two rock formations in an arc above the boy's head. Shi Hua thrust his fists downward. The rocks were about fall on Zhengyi.

The boy erected twin columns of rock, stopping the falling crags only a foot above his head. Zhengyi grabbed onto the crags and flipped over his tutor's head. He unleashed an arc of flame from his foot, and Shi Hua stumbled forward.

Er Shi Wu wanted to make Zhengyi as powerful a bender as he could, so he never concealed from the boy the fact that he was the Avatar, although he made sure the boy did not know about the Avatar State and that he thought the traditional Avatar's role of protecting the world was not an attractive lifestyle. Traditionally, Zhengyi shouldn't have found out until he was a year older than he presently was, but Wu wanted to get him training with all four elements as soon as possible. As it was, Wu had started Zhengyi training as soon as he was old enough to walk. He did start on earthbending, but moved on to water and fire after just a few years. Ba Sing Se was the biggest city in the world, and people from all over the world flocked there for various reasons. There were many waterbenders and firebenders in the city, and because émigrés were often discriminated against and forced to take lower-paying jobs, quite a few of them ended up working for the Hei Chaoliu. Most clans had at least one waterbender or firebender, and a clan the size of Wu's had several of each. Wu had hired or assigned these to teach Zhengyi their bending styles. The only bending style Zhengyi had never learned was air, since Air Nomads rarely had reason to leave their own society, despite the many who made regular journeys to the city as part of their spiritual pilgrimages. And no Air Nomad would ever stoop to working with criminals. Still, by now Zhengyi was very proficient with the other three styles.

Zhengyi spun around and pumped one fireball after another at Shi Hua. The earthbending teacher erected a wall of earth and the flames dissipated on its surface. Zhengyi bent water out of the koi pond in the courtyard and sliced off the top three-quarters of the wall. He followed this by erecting a spire of rock out of the ground straight for Shi Hua's neck. The spire's point was inches from the man's neck.

"Well, your control is good," Shi Hua commented sarcastically, relinquishing the fight and walking around the rock formation. "You can transition between bending styles nicely, as far as I can tell. But then, I'm just an earthbender. I think I've run out of things to teach you."

"I don't know why Wu keeps making me take lessons," Zhengyi said, relaxing his stout body. "I can already beat anybody in the city. I must've beat Wu himself a hundred times."

"Yeah, we're really at the level of repetition and reinforcement. But as long as he keeps paying me I'll keep drilling you. And hey, the stronger you are, the richer this clan'll be when you inherit it."

"Yeah, but it gets boring if there's nothing new to learn. Maybe the next stage in my training could be how to use bending to impress girls. At least that would have a point," he grinned. Shi Hua chuckled as Zhengyi picked up his pet pygmy puma, Fu Shan, who was trying to fish in the koi pond. The boy held his pet under its forearms as he nuzzled it and talked baby-talk to it. Although Zhengyi fancied himself a tough guy, and he was indeed a powerful fighter, he had a soft spot for his fuzzy animal guide.

* * *

Ying Su, heavier and more wrinkled than she had been fifteen years ago, was sweeping dirt off the front walkway to the house. Her hair was done up with a comb, and the long skirt of her green and yellow ruqun brushed back and forth as she swept. Out of nowhere, she heard a voice.

"The Tong clan has a warehouse in the Eastern Quarter of the Lower Ring. I want it," Er Shi Wu said, tossing her a map of the building and surrounding streets.

Su laid the broom aside and dusted her light yellow waist skirt. She took the map and examined it thoroughly. "Will you take Zhengyi with you again?" she asked.

"Of course," he replied snidely. "If I don't take Zhengyi, how do I know you won't steer me right into a trap?"

Su just looked sad and distant, but she was thinking. "Take as few men as you need besides him," she said morosely. "Let the Tong think you've brought a weak force. The entrances will be guarded, so set him up outside this window in the middle. He can use just a single spark to ignite the dai zhiwu—"

"What?" Wu bellowed. "Dai zhiwu is just dried leaves! It'll go up like that!" He snapped his fingers. "And one tael of it is worth a thousand gold pieces!"

"Exactly. The Tong will be too busy worrying about the fire to put up a fight. Zhengyi can control the fire to herd them into a confined area. Then you can take them out with two or three people, while they cut_ your_ losses by keeping the fire down. Zhengyi can control water and fire. Between all that, I wouldn't guess you'll lose more than five percent of the total inventory, and you're guaranteed not to lose a single man."

Wu thought about it. "The death stipend for a clan member _is _well over a few thousand gold pieces…All right. Seems like a sound plan. Hope it works," he threatened with a smile, then strode past her into the house.

"You know I can't mislead you, Wu," she whispered to his back as he walked away.

* * *

As Zhengyi tickled Fu Shan's belly, One-Eyed Wu emerged from the house. Shi Hua promptly bowed to him. Far from the dirty linen shirt and ku he had worn before his rise to power, Wu now sported a silvery-gray silk zhaoshan with mountains and clouds embroidered across the back in gold thread. "Zhengyi, I need your help today," he said. "The Tong clan has been trying to run dai zhiwu dens in Ban territory. The men found the location of a warehouse where they hoard the stuff, so we're going to retaliate by seizing it."

"Again?" Zhengyi complained, stroking Fu Shan.

"Kid, that dai zhiwu is worth hundreds of thousands of gold pieces. You better not be telling me the heir of the most powerful criminal organization in the Earth Kingdom would rather play with pets than fight," Wu said playfully, although he knew it would get under Zhengyi's skin.

"Pfft, no…" the boy said defensively. "But I've been fighting Tongs every day this week. It's annoying, especially because you won't let me go up and fight them directly, like a normal person."

Because Zhengyi was the Avatar, Wu could not let just anyone see Zhengyi bending fire or water. The Avatar was the protector of all four nations, and Wu was using him to fight for drugs and control of territory. If the public discovered that their Avatar was essentially being raised as a protégé to a crime lord, Zhengyi would most certainly be taken away from Wu—or Wu would have to kill him before he could be taken away. Wu did not teach Zhengyi anything about what being the Avatar traditionally meant, and made sure he was loyal to Wu and the clan over everything else. The way Wu explained the situation to Zhengyi, if people discovered he was the Avatar he wouldn't be allowed to succeed his father and run the clan when he grew up, which was his greatest ambition. Consequently, Zhengyi usually had to hide on far-off rooftops or around corners, somewhere where he could get a vantage on the fighting, but could not be seen himself. It was not beyond his abilities, but was pretty unsatisfying and a good bit harder than a straight fight.

"This is important, Zhengyi," Wu urged. "Do I need to explain again how important dai zhiwu is to the Hei Chaoliu? It's more powerful than betel nuts or alcohol," the one-eyed man counted out on his fingers. "It's addictive, which means repeat business. It's illegal, which means if someone wants it they can _only_ come to the clans. And the more this war with the western cities drains the economy, the more people buy dai zhiwu to forget their troubles. Dai zhiwu is the _future_ of organized crime in the Earth Kingdom."

Dai zhiwu was a recently discovered hybrid plant that could be ground up and smoked to produce a powerful narcotic. It had originally been grown in the western Earth Kingdom. Because the strict and self-righteous current Earth King, Jin Ling, had outlawed alcohol, betel nuts, gambling, and other things he felt "impeded the mind," the soldiers fighting against Omashu in the Earth Kingdom Civil War had no substance they could use as a painkiller for the first few years of the war. When dai zhiwu was discovered, it was so new it had not been officially outlawed. It was used in army hospitals, but because it was addictive the soldiers brought it with them when they returned to Ba Sing Se. Dai zhiwu made users tired and listless, causing them to neglect work and relationships. Taking too much could cause death, although the medical knowledge as to why this happened was lacking. Soon it was propagating in the city and eventually King Jin Ling declared it illegal as well. But it was so potent that people couldn't stay away from it. Since it was illegal the Hei Chaoliu took control of its trade, and the remaining clans were making a killing off of it.

"You want the clan to prosper, don't you?" Wu concluded, running his fingers through his slicked-back hair. His hair was receding more prominently from the sides than the front. His hairline made a U-shape on the top of his head.

"I know, I know," Zhengyi relented, placing his puma on the ground. "Let's go."

"Lucky Cho and the others are staking the place out. We'll meet them there."

* * *

Wu strolled very casually through the streets of the lower ring. He had changed out of his more expensive clothes, not wanting to draw any undue attention to himself. He rarely personally accompanied his men on clan business anymore, trying as he was to cultivate an image of a law-abiding merchant in order to deflect any real accusations by the city government. If peasants or rival clan members knew he was a crook it hardly mattered—no one listened to them. But as rich as Wu was, the odd do-gooder public official still had some potential to make trouble for him. Ti Xi had let a city guardsman too close to the clan once, and it ended badly for all involved, so Wu was sure to be cautious about what he was seen doing.

He continued to crunch on his apple as Zhengyi marched along next to him. Zhengyi was apparently bored, even though they were off to what would have been a life-and-death battle for someone other than the Avatar. Wu decided to try and engage him about the mechanics of running a clan, as he sometimes did. "So, Xiǎo Zhengyi, let me ask you something."

The boy rolled his eyes at Wu's nickname for him. Wu liked to tease Zhengyi with it.

"Say I have two suppliers who want me to distribute their dai zhiwu. One guy says if I pay him an extra five percent now, he'll sell to me first a year from now. No matter what happens to the market, he'll sell to me first. The other guy says he'll give me a ten percent discount now if I agree to buy from him first a year from now. Who should I buy from?"

"Second guy," Zhengyi said assuredly. "Always take the sure thing. Dai zhiwu supplier could be dead or in jail a year from now."

"Exactly," Wu smiled. "You're shaping up to be a pretty good Mountain Master, kid." He took a bite from his apple.

They turned into an alley, on approach to the warehouse. Suddenly Wu felt something sharp poking into his back. "Hand over all your money," the knife-wielding mugger demanded.

Wu calmly took a last bite of his apple, chuckling. He threw the core away.

"What's wrong with you?" the mugger cried. "I said gimme your money!" His hands were shaky and he looked emaciated. He had dark circles under his eyes. Zhengyi could tell he was a dai zhiwu user. He probably bought from the Ban clan.

"Sorry," Wu said, stifling his laughter. "It's just funny that you picked me to rob. You must have terrible luck." With that, Wu raised some rock to trap the hand in which the mugger held his knife. Turning to face him, Wu drew the rock back into the ground, pulling the mugger with it. He bound the mugger's other arm and feet to the ground with more rings of earth, then levitated a large rock. Wu let it hover over the frightened mugger's knife-hand. He let it drop. The mugger howled as his hand was crushed. Wu released the man, then shifted his foot to drag the mugger away on a carpet of earth.

Zhengyi chuckled at the ease with which Wu had beaten up the attacker. "You really messed that guy up," he laughed.

"If you want to be seen as a strong leader, you can't allow people to take what's yours. Come on, let's find Lucky Cho and Aguta."

The two walked on and came to a dai zhiwu den. Wu stopped outside. "This is Kun's place," Wu said. "Go inside and tell Lucky Cho that his due date passed. I'll be waiting out here. Then we'll head to the warehouse."

Zhengyi entered. The floor was littered with the living corpses of addicts, and the air stank of the acrid smoke fumes. Zhengyi snorted, trying to force the smell from his nostrils. Wu's men were seated at a couple tables in the back, enjoying some noodles and illegal _báijiǔ _liquor. They all rose and bowed as Zhengyi walked over.

Lucky Cho—as scrawny, squirrelly, and sycophantic as he had been fifteen years ago—was there, plus the three other men Wu had assigned to this. And then there was Aguta, a tall, slightly lanky waterbender. Animal bone piercings decorated his ears, septum, eyebrows, and lips. His hair was tied into several very small knots, forming a semispherical grid pattern all over his head, giving the impression of spikes from far away. A chunk was missing from the top of his left ear. Aguta was a psychopath, with a genuine enthusiasm for violence. He had been granted Wu's old position as clan General, although in practice Wu still directed all the clan's combat operations. Aguta was more like Wu's personal hitman, who went after Wu's chosen targets while Wu himself kept his hands clean. He was also Zhengyi's waterbending teacher.

"Wu says it's time to make Kun pay up. Then we're going to the Tong warehouse," he told them.

Lucky Cho nodded at Aguta and they both approached the man tending the bar.

He was serving drinks and dai zhiwu when he saw the two Chaoliu enforcers approach. His eyes widened and he started shaking.

"Mr. Kun," Lucky Cho regarded him.

"I-I'm sorry about money. Please," the owner pleaded. Zhengyi leaned against the doorjamb. Aguta bent the drinks out of the glasses sitting around the bar and swirled them casually around right hand with a small flutter of his fingers. "I can get the money, I just need a little more time. Business just hasn't been as brisk as I thought. I, I couldn't have known profits wouldn't pick up. J-just a little time, please. That's all."

Lucky Cho was indifferent. "Your payment for the stuff was due yesterday. Now, I know you would never intentionally disrespect the Ban clan by trying to stiff us." His tone was mockingly sympathetic. "So the problem must be that you're just not good at remembering dates, right? Then we'll help you."

Aguta moved closer to the man. Lucky Cho continued. "Ban clan policy is to give everyone a ten-day grace period to repay overdue loans. Your payment was due yesterday, which means you have this many days to repay us," said, holding up his fingers as though he were talking to a child. "As of today, you have nine days left. Aguta, show him how many 'nine' is," Cho said, nodding to the waterbender.

Aguta seized Kun by the wrist in one hand, and grabbed his pinky finger in the other. He broke it with a snap.

Kun screamed and cradled his broken hand in the other. Aguta grabbed him by the hair while Cho stared coldly into his eyes. Zhengyi looked on. "Some guys are going to come by here and give you another _math lesson_ every day until we get our money. Understand?" Aguta tugged a little harder on his hair to emphasize the point.

The Ban members left the den. Aguta, at the tail of the group, stopped to bulge his eyes at a woman sitting by the door for good measure. He laughed as she fumbled her cup.

The men all bowed to Wu when they met him outside. "Mountain Master," Cho addressed him.

"You've staked out the warehouse already like I asked?" Wu said.

"Thirty men, _dà __g__ē_," Aguta told him. "They've been guarding that place since yesterday. They should be pretty tired by now. A good time to strike," he said, grinning.

"Let's head over. I'll wait at the noodle house across the street," Wu said. "I'll give you the plan when we get there."

People gave them a wide berth as they moved through the streets. Zhengyi tagged along at Wu's side. "That was kind of rough what they did to Kun back there," he observed. "What if he has trouble paying you cuz he can't use that finger?"

"It doesn't matter how much business he does between then and now. He's afraid of what'll happen if he doesn't pay," Wu assured the boy, "so he's going to get the money somewhere. And everyone who sees his broken finger is going to know what happens when you don't pay the Ban clan on time. I made an example of him. Get it?"

"Oh," the Avatar said. "Yeah, I see."

"Listen. You're like my apprentice, Zhengyi. You have to take all this in. I was your father's best friend, you know. He made me your godfather, and when he was killed by a rival gang he made me swear—"

"—Swear to raise me as your own and teach me how to run the clan so I could become Mountain Master one day," Zhengyi blandly recited the speech Wu had told him about a million times throughout his childhood. "I know. I'm doing my best, all right?"

"I'm just trying to honor your father," Wu told him.

When they were about a block away from the warehouse Wu halted the cadre of men at the corner of a building. It was just beginning to get dark. He briefed them on the plan Ying Su had provided for him. He indicated the place near the window where he wanted Zhengyi to stand. Zhengyi seemed just a little distracted, and Wu remembered how moody he had seemed this afternoon.

He looked to Zhengyi. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"Thirty on five, plus the Avatar? That's cool," he said. "I'm always ready for a fight." He punched his palm enthusiastically.

Aguta laughed. "This kid's an animal!" he said, giving Zhengyi a friendly punch in the shoulder. Zhengyi smiled.

As Zhengyi positioned himself at a window midway down the length of the building, Wu sat down and ordered some food in the noodle house across the street. His men casually waited nearby. Soon cries of "Fire!" erupted from inside. Aguta rushed headlong into the building, followed closely by the other fighters. Lucky Cho stayed towards the rear. Zhengyi hefted himself onto some boxes from a nearby store that were stacked outside the window, so he could see what he was doing. The place was absolutely packed with bundles of dried white leaves. The collection of about fifty packages beneath him was on fire, and Tong retainers were desperately trying to snuff it out with clothing, blankets, and water from a nearby well. Carefully, without being seen, Zhengyi radiated the fire farther and farther, pressing the Tongs back toward the exit.

They never even saw Wu's men coming. For a thirty on five fight, the five won pretty quickly. A few of the Tongs tried to put up a fight, but Zhengyi used earthbending to offset their balance, making them easy pickings for the Ban.

Seeing no more live Tongs about, Zhengyi bent some water out of the well nearby and doused the fire with it. But just as he did so, a fleeing Tong member decided to take refuge from the Ban behind the stack of boxes Zhengyi was standing on. He saw Zhengyi bend the water. Before Zhengyi even noticed he was there, the Avatar began bending earth to snuff the remaining flames. This Tong, not the sharpest man around, watched for a moment and finally realized.

"Th-the Avatar!" he cried, pointing. Zhengyi looked at him, more embarrassed at being caught than anything. He swore at himself. His true identity was not supposed to be known.

Just then, Wu turned the corner, on his way to collect Zhengyi. He saw the Tong who had escaped and instantly seized him, trapping him in a rock formation. He drew a dagger from his sash. "Avatar, help me! He's going to kill me!" the Tong pleaded.

Wu locked a ring of earth around the Tong's mouth, silencing him. "He knows you're the Avatar?" Wu hissed in a whisper.

"I'm sorry! He snuck up on me!" Zhengyi said.

Wu looked back and forth between them for a minute. He removed a dagger from inside his shirt and offered it to the boy. "You have to kill him," he said.

Zhengyi looked at the blade, then back to Wu. Reluctantly, he wrapped his fingers around the handle.


	6. Chapter 2, Part 2

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 2: The Godfather

Part 2

Wu tugged on the man's hair, exposing his neck for Zhengyi. "Do it like I said," he prompted. "Let the blade do the work."

Zhengyi prepared himself to insert the knife. He felt the tendons in his elbow tense. But his gaze met that of the Tong. The man—or boy; he couldn't have been more than twenty—was shaking. His eyes bulged pleadingly.

That was one thing Ying Su had always told him, always seemed to be clucking at him while he scampered out a door to help with clan business: that the Hei Chaoliu was fundamentally about justice. It had been formed by poor people who banded together to help each other against the powerful, and his father had known this well. She told him justice meant treating people as their past actions warranted. "Wu doesn't truly understand what the Hei Chaoliu means, not the way you father did," she would say. "And don't assume you know anyone's past, no matter who the are."

Zhengyi understood that he didn't know this Tong's past. He didn't know who he was or where he came from. And to kill someone in cold blood like this… the guy was begging Zhengyi to save him a moment ago. He was helpless. How could he deserve to die?

But Zhengyi had been careless and had gotten caught. He had endangered his brothers, so it was his responsibility to eliminate this enemy of the clan. Enemies of the clan deserved to be taken out. That was undeniable. That was what the son of a Mountain Master should do…right?

Zhengyi's head dropped. "I…I c-can't," he admitted. "I'm sorry."

"That's right you are!" Wu snapped. "You need to grow up, kid." He stuck his head into the warehouse through the window. "Aguta, get out here!" he called.

"Yeah, boss?" Aguta asked, climbing out the window.

"Take care of this," Wu barked, pointing a thumb at the captive.

Aguta grinned from ear to ear, and started chuckling as he encased the man in ice and dragged him off.

"Do you realize how important it is that no one find out you're the Avatar?" he said. "Anyone who knows your identity is a threat to the clan. You father did what it took to protect his brothers. You'd better grow up and start acing more like him."

Zhengyi felt disgusted at himself. "Sorry, all right?" he barked, defensive. "You always say you won't make me have to kill anyone before I'm ready!"

"I won't _force_ you to do anything. But if you want to lead this clan someday you better learn. This is our lifestyle, Zhengyi. We're the Hei Chaoliu! We're outlaws! We don't survive by running to the law, we survive by our strength! Remember the Chen Mo code! If people find out that you're the Avatar, they're going to take you away. They're going to send you all over the world, put you through agonizing training and force you to basically kill yourself rescuing people you don't even care about! And you will _never_ get to lead your clan. The Ban name will be permanently dishonored and the clan will dissolve!"

Everything was still for a moment. Wu hissed in frustration again. "Maybe it's my fault for using a plan that made you bend two elements. We need to train you to be more discreet."

Zhengyi just looked at his feet and clenched his fists, angry with himself.

"Get inside while we wait for the cart," Wu said, already turning his attention from Zhengyi, walking away from the warehouse. They would have to wait for some other Ban retainers to show up with covered carts so they could move the dai zhiwu to one of their storehouses. Zhengyi let Wu get some distance on him before following. _At least we actually didn't lose very much dai zhiwu_, Zhengyi thought, trying to be optimistic. He knew Wu would still be mad though.

"Great score, _dà __g__ē_," Lucky Cho congratulated Wu. Other men came up and offered their leader congratulations for the brilliant plan and the great haul. After what had just happened, Zhengyi felt even worse. Could he ever be as strong a leader as Wu?

Amid the congratulations, Wu started sniffing the air. He saw some smoke wafting up from farther back in the warehouse and quickly followed it, thinking some of the product might still be on fire. But when he came to the source he saw it was just a pipe that a young Ban retainer was smoking. "What do you think you're doing? Get that out of your mouth!" Wu barked, ripping the pipe out of the man's teeth. "Did you steal this from me?" Wu threatened, referring to the dai zhiwu in the pipe.

"No, it's mine! I paid for it, I swear!" the man pleaded.

Wu thrust his fingers into the man's mouth and clutched his lower mandible. "I don't care if you paid for it," he growled. "I have made it clear—_several_ times—that I do not approve of my men smoking dai zhiwu. Dai zhiwu is for worthless, stupid junkies. It messes with your head, and I don't want any stupid people working for me. I had better never see you with a pipe again. I don't care if you're blowing bubbles, the next time I see a pipe in your teeth—" he stared right into the man's eyes "—I will break. Your. Jaw," he said, releasing the hapless smoker's jaw but giving him a good punch in the gut. He keeled over and Wu stalked away, waiting for the carts to show up.

* * *

Soon some more Ban retainers showed up with ostrich-horsedrawn carts. Zhengyi used his earthbending to levitate the ground under the huge stacks of dai zhiwu, using them like dollies to load the drugs onto the carts. Wu waited across the street. Just as the first cart had been filled and the driver had sent off, a patrol of city guard officers appeared, marching down the street.

"The guard!" Lucky Cho called.

"Relax, stupid," Wu replied, stepping out of the safety of the restaurant across the street. "I can handle guards."

The other men stopped working, and stared at the officers in a way that the criminals apparently didn't realize was quite suspicious. Zhengyi shrank back toward the warehouse door and tried to look casual, but only Wu truly kept his cool.

"What's going on here?" the guard captain asked.

"Good afternoon," Wu greeted them pleasantly. "Oh, Captain Chan, it's you."

"Mr. Er! I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you. Staying out of trouble, I hope," the officer joked.

Wu realized that the captain knew he was doing something illegal, but Wu went right along with the act. Chan was one of the most corrupt guard officers there was, and that was saying something, since almost every high-ranked guard in the city was in Wu's pocket. "Of course. For today, at least," Wu laughed. They had to keep up the act for the sake of the other officers.

"So, what kind of goods are you moving here?" Chan asked pleasantly.

"Flour," Wu said, without the slightest hesitation. It was the standard cover-up. "Are there any fees associated with the transportation of flour in this part of the city that I'm not aware of?" Wu said, subtly offering the captain a bribe.

Chan pushed out a sigh, but he could barely contain his glee, being the poor actor that he was. "I'm afraid so."

"Let's discuss it over here," Wu motioned, walking the captain down the street a little way.

Away from the other cops, Wu and Chan huddled together. "Ten thousand," Chan said flatly. He knew the routine. Wu gave Chan a certificate for the money, a special form of IOU that the Hei Chaoliu clans had used for many years, since they so often dealt in large sums of money.

"I'm not in the Black Current, Wu," the captain whispered angrily. "This is no good to me, I want cash."

"I'll send men to your house with the money tomorrow at midnight. You can redeem that for gold pieces."

Chan looked at the paper coldly for a minute. "Only because I know you're good for it," he finally said.

Wu shot him a grin, their business concluded. They walked back to their respective groups. "All right, let's move along, men," Captain Chan barked. Obediently, the rest of the officers marched down the street.

The Ban members watched them go for a moment. _I thought we were gonna get arrested for sure, but Wu handled that so easily_, Zhengyi thought.

Then Wu smacked one of his teamsters upside the head, angry having drawn the attention of the city guard despite all his efforts to do otherwise. "Load the stuff! I'm not paying you to stand around!"

* * *

"And then he just punched Xuan right in the gut!" Zhengyi recounted to Ying Su, as they sat in the kitchen back at the Ban compound and she turned their turkey-duck dinner on a spit. "Oh, and then the guards showed up!" he drew out the last syllable a bit, emphasizing the incredibility of his story. "Everyone thought we were gonna get arrested. But Wu just bribes the guard and they walk away, like they never even showed up. We got away clean," he said excitedly. "Oh, and you know how much Wu said he thought the score was worth?" Su didn't look up, she just clenched her jaw and kept turning the spit. " Four…hundred…thousand." His eyes shone. "Four hundred thousand gold pieces for the Ban clan. That's the kinda boss I'm gonna be, pulling in scores like that…" he trailed off, seemingly imagining such a scenario.

"Your father wasn't like that," Ying Su spat, sounding rather disgusted. She stopped turning the spit.

Zhengyi knitted his brow, wondering what had angered her so suddenly. "I really think you idolize Wu way too much, Zhengyi. He's not a very nice man," Ying Su explained, a little more calmly.

"He has a responsibility to make money for the clan, and he does. He takes care of his clan brothers and handles his business," Zhengyi said. "That's what a man does."

"Your father made plenty money for the clan too." She looked back at Zhengyi, the venom in her voice increasing. "Wu is just a thug. He doesn't care about the clan. You saw yourself—he beat Xuan up just for smoking."

"If our members smoke plant it makes us weak," he replied, although feelings of empathy for Xuan started to tug at him. "We're the Hei Chaoliu! We're outlaws!" he parroted Wu. "That's our lifestyle! We can't live by society's laws; we have to survive by our strength!"

"Ti Xi was a true outlaw!" Su cried "He had honor! People respected him! Wu is nothing but a bully! He just takes what he feels like, and kills anyone in the way!"

"He's a Mountain Master! He has to do it for the clan!" Zhengyi shouted back.

"The clan!" Su cried. "The clan is nothing! No one cares about brotherhood or honor anymore! It's just a street gang! It's a pack of murderers!"

Zhengyi swore at her. Su was visibly taken aback, but Zhengyi went on. "My father was murdered as soon as I was born! Don't act like you understand me!" He angrily jabbed two fingers at her. "I have _no one_ but Wu and the clan! And I have a responsibility to lead them one day! Every one of those guys is my family!" Zhengyi thought of the Tong member he'd refused to kill earlier. Ying Su was always making him feel like he should question Wu, but Wu was the closest thing to a father he had, and Wu was teaching him how to fulfill is destiny by leading the clan. Zhengyi was still angry at himself for not killing that Tong. "They'd die for me! They'd kill for me! I'd die for them and I'd kill for them!" Zhengyi glared at Ying Su. His voice carried the very slightest hint of impending tears.

"Don't you _ever_ tell me they don't care about brotherhood," Zhengyi whispered. "They treat me like a brother, and they're the only family I'll ever have."

Su was almost crying. She sighed. "…You really believe that, don't you?" She sadly turned to go back to the spit, but Zhengyi just wheeled and stormed off to his room.

"You have to have dinner!" Su called after him.

"I'm not hungry!" he screamed.

Su exhaled. A smile crept across her face.

* * *

Zhengyi sat up very late that night, thinking things over, replaying the argument in his mind, and petting Fu Shan. He didn't really feel sorry, although he thought his emotions might have gotten the better of him. Either way, he fell asleep eventually. Tonight, however, his dreams were strange.

He saw a large man with no face, who sort of looked like a portrait of Ti Xi that Zhengyi had seen.

"…_my heir…"_

He heard the sounds of fighting, metal striking.

"…_Take care of him while I'm gone…"_

The man transformed into a pygmy puma. The sound of fighting melted into a strange song, one that seemed oddly familiar to Zhengyi in that dream-state.

"_Yáo yā yáo...Yáo yā yáo"_

The pygmy puma leapt over Zhengyi, but landed to his left. It curled up and transformed into sickly green light.

"…_Yáo nǐ zhǎng dà…Yo liao shiwang…"_

The green light was blinding. Zhengyi tried to shield his eyes, but his corporeal body was half-nonexistent in the dream. His arms did not respond.

"…_Bǎo bǎo kuái __zhǎng dà_…"

He heard a crunching sound, almost overpowering the song.

"…_Bǎo bǎo kuái __zhǎng dà__…"_

Just as he could barely stand the light any longer, the silhouette of a woman appeared, blocking Zhengyi's view of it. Ying Su? No, Su was taller and didn't have this woman's thick braids. His mother?

"_Awaken…"_ Was the woman speaking?

"_Avatar Zhengyi…"_ Yes, he couldn't see her face, but even through the shadows he knew her lips were moving.

"_It's time you learned."_

Zhengyi's eyes burst open with a start, and he realized Fu Shan was sitting on his chest, licking him. Zhengyi panted, calming himself. Momentarily, he picked up Fu Shan and placed him on the floor.

The cat immediately bolted to the door and scratched at it frantically. "What is it?" Zhengyi asked his pet, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "I already let you out tonight." Fu Shan kept scratching, and started mewing as though he were in pain. "Wow, you're really serious, huh?" Zhengyi said. He got up and shambled out of bed, opening the door for his pet.

But once in the hall, Fu Shan headed the opposite way Zhengyi expected him to head. He didn't need to go to the bathroom, apparently. "Get back here!" Zhengyi whispered with annoyance, chasing after the pygmy puma.

Sounds drifted up to Zhengyi: laughter first, then the clunk of _jiǔ_ bottles being set down. Soon, three voices became distinct.

"All in, all in," Aguta said, in his usual manic tone. Zhengyi heard gold pieces clinking. Aguta, Lucky Cho, and One-Eyed Wu were gambling in the dining room.

"You always go all in, and then you always lose," Lucky Cho chided him. "The point of the game is to bet strategically."

Zhengyi continued silently down the stairs, not wanting to make Wu any madder by allowing Fu Shan to jump up on the table in the middle of a card game with his top two lieutenants. Then again, if Wu was in a good mood, maybe he'd get in on the game…

"I don't care!" Aguta called out, a little too loudly because of the influence of the drink. "I'll bet all I want! We made a thousand gold piecesh each today!"

"Yep," Lucky Cho said, adding, "and it's all thanks to the boss here! To One-Eyed Wu!"

"You're tha best,_ dà __g__ē_!" Aguta chimed in. Zhengyi heard the alcohol slosh in the near-empty bottles as they lifted them.

"Quit drinking that stuff!" Zhengyi heard Wu say, as Wu snatched the bottle from Aguta. "It'll screw with your head."

"Shorry, boss," Aguta replied. " 'M jusht celebratin'."

"We're enjoying the prosperity you've brought to our clan," Lucky Cho added.

Zhengyi peered around the doorjamb and paused for a moment, noticing their tattoos. As Hei Chaoliu men nearly always did, these three had removed their tops for the game of cards. It was an intimidation tactic, in that it allowed them to show off their elaborate tattoos to opponents. Aguta's torso was a maze of tan skin and tribal symbols inked in indigo. He added tattoos as often as he could because he enjoyed the pain.

Lucky Cho, on the other hand, had no tattoos except the standard pygmy puma on the left pectoral muscle, which nearly all Ban retainers had, even young Zhengyi.

Wu probably had the best tattoos of the three. A fierce-looking badger-mole covered almost his entire back, it's claws curving over his trapezius muscles. This tattoo let other Chaoliu members know that the bearer was a strong earthbender. Across Wu's shoulders ran a tattooed proverb, interrupted in the middle by the badger-mole's arms. It read, "Do no evil deeds, and you need not fear ghosts knocking." Zhengyi had asked what it meant once. Wu told him it meant that one who carries out evil deeds would be tormented by guilt. "That's why I never do anything evil," he had added with a smile.

A depiction of a gold piece decorated either of Wu's shoulders, with a one-horned eagle-lion twined through each. Eagle-lions were believed to bring wealth. Although Wu's back was to him at the moment, Zhengyi also remembered that Wu had the standard pygmy puma tattoo on his pectoral, as well as an eye on his bicep. The eye tattoo ensured that anyone who didn't know his face would still be able to identify him, because everyone in Ba Sing Se knew the name of One-Eyed Wu.

"We're doing much better than we ever did under Ti Xi," Lucky Cho continued.

Zhengyi was a little offended at Lucky Cho's callousness. He turned into the room, following Fu Shan but also fully prepared to give Lucky Cho a piece of his mind if Wu didn't first.

He thought he knew what Wu was going to say, but what Wu did say would change this Avatar's life forever.

Wu chuckled and said, "Killing him was the smartest thing I ever did."

Zhengyi was paralyzed. He felt as though the force of that news had ripped away the world around him, and left a void in which the words echoed forever. His life, his reality, everything he thought he knew, was suddenly shattered.


	7. Chapter 2, Part 3

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 2: The Godfather

Part 3

The loud profanity Lucky Cho exclaimed upon noticing him jarred the boy out of his daze. Wu and Aguta turned their attention to where Lucky Cho was looking, and they realized Zhengyi had overheard everything. Wu sighed and shook his head, getting up slowly and picking up an apple had been eating.

"No…No, it's not true," Zhengyi muttered, as embers of rage began to glow in his eyes.

Wu locked eyes with Zhengyi. A smirk curled over his face. "_Xiǎo_ Zhengyi. You finally found out."

"You…you killed my father?" Zhengyi asked, quaking, about to collapse under the news.

Wu's tone was absolutely matter-of-fact and emotionless. "I did."

"Wh—what?" Zhengyi stuttered.

"I killed your father, Ban Ti Xi. I stabbed him in the stomach shortly after I found out you were the Avatar." Wu saw how Zhengyi had curled his hands into fists, shaking with rage. Fu Shan was ready to pounce, flicking his tail at the boy's feet. "I knew you'd find out eventually. But don't misunderstand me, Zhengyi. Your father was my best friend in the world."

Wu had to keep talking, preventing Zhengyi's mind from focusing on his anger. Wu had long ago researched the Avatar State, and although he had prevented Zhengyi from ever knowing about it, he knew what it took for an Avatar to enter it. He also knew he had no real mode of defense against it, should the situation ever arise.

"Your father was a good guy, but he was too soft. No matter what anyone tells you, business comes first in the Hei Chaoliu. I knew I had to act when I found out you were the Avatar." Wu casually tossed his apple to himself. "The greatest weapon in the world fell right into his lap, but I knew Ti Xi wouldn't be willing to use your abilities to the fullest. He didn't understand your potential. It wasn't his fault, really, but he had to be taken out of the picture. So, I gave the Du clan the location of our headquarters and, knowing they would attack, I framed one of them for the murder."

Zhengyi snarled at him. "You piece of—"

"What?" Wu mocked him. "You think I'm some kind villain now? You think you're some righteous avenger? This is the Hei Chaoliu, kid! The Black Current! Organized crime!" Wu raised his arms in a sweeping gesture. "That kind of thing has been going on as long as the Chaoliu has existed! And you think your father was so perfect? He might have had a few more qualms than me, but he was still a crime boss. He still did all _kinds_ of illegal things. The only difference between him and me is that he was naïve."

Wu moved closer to Zhengyi. He noted that his tactic was working, as Zhengyi had not taken the opportunity to attack. Wu had anticipated this moment for a long time. He knew what to say to keep Zhengyi confused, and if his emotions were not pure the Avatar state would not activate. And Wu had built a further advantage over decades of raising Zhengyi as a criminal, namely that he had left the boy's spiritual capabilities hopelessly underdeveloped.

Wu appeared to calm. He took on a bargainer's tone, laying a deal out before Zhengyi. "Listen, Zhengyi: nothing has to change just because you found out I killed Ti Xi. You and I are both the same people we were this afternoon. What does it matter that he's your father? I mean, think about it: you never even knew him, so why should you care if he's dead? I want you to keep working for me. I'll still let you take over the clan one day, just like I always said. We can keep everything the way it was." Wu was closer to Zhengyi and he spoke very softly now, almost in a whisper. "Just turn around, and go back to bed."

They glared at each other.

Zhengyi started to shake his head slowly. "No," he said.

Zhengyi's building rage was palpable, but Wu's words nagged at Zhengyi in the back of his mind. Zhengyi had been taught to reach for anger first, but that didn't mean his emotions were pure. Zhengyi was not perceptive enough to understand it, but the true source of his anger was his confusion, having his perceptions broken by the realization that he had been deceived. Still, Zhengyi would use that rage. "I'll kill you!" he roared.

Zhengyi instantly dropped into his fighting stance and exploded a fist and palm from his chest, smashing a boulder up through the floor right at Wu's face. Wu grinned, placing his palms together and thrusting his fingers, spearlike, into the boulder. It shattered easily, never really a threat at all. He quickly brought his fists back to his waist. He shifted to a sideways stance and punched them both out, leaning laterally. A crag crackled toward Zhengyi under the floor like a burrowing animal. Before the boy could react, it exploded out of the ground and knocked him back.

"Your bow-and-arrow-stance is too narrow," Wu chided him. "Makes the rocks brittle," he smirked.

Zhengyi shook his head. Regaining his lucidity, he planted his hands and wheeled his legs in the air above him. A ring of fire radiated from them. It kept his opponents at a distance as he sprang to his feet.

Aguta looked around for something he could bend. Lucky Cho drew a knife and started to advance on Zhengyi, but Fu Shan sprang on him before he could make a move. He fell to the ground, rolling back and forth, struggling to keep the cat's claws from his face.

Zhengyi's eyes were burning and wide. He pumped out four fireballs, but Wu went low, ducking underneath. He snaked around them all and closed the distance between himself and the boy. "Your fireball punches are too high," Wu smiled.

Zhengyi snapped another fireball at him from a high kick. Wu shifted his front foot and the earth under Zhengyi's planted foot reacted. It was as though Wu had known the move Zhengyi was going to use ahead of time. The boy fell on his behind. Wu stamped his foot, freeing a boulder. He levitated it over Zhengyi, then let it fall. The boy gasped. He swung his fist at it and a rock ripped through the floor to his left to knock it away. He rolled on to his feet and made a grand motion with his arms. A large pillar rose up under him and he sprang off it, landing on the other side of the room.

Suddenly, the _jiǔ_ bottle came flying at Zhengyi's head. Aguta was bending the liquor inside. Zhengyi countered with his own waterbending move, pressing the _jiǔ_ into a vertical blade and slicing it through the back of the bottle. Aguta made a small motion and the blade liquefied again, splashing harmlessly on his feet.

"And you angle your hand too much when you do _d__ā__n bi__ā__n_!" Wu called, rushing at him.

Zhengyi blasted a rocky spire out of the ground under Wu, but Wu brought his own fist down and the spire retracted back into the earth. "Who paid all your teachers, Zhengyi?" Wu said. The boy sent a chunk of rock sliding across the ground at Wu. With a bit of effort, Wu was able to send it off course, collapsing it harmlessly on a wall. "Your whole life, all your bending teachers have answered to me," Wu said. "I told you that I knew you would find out eventually."

The other Ban retainers around the compound started to appear, standing on the sidelines of the room. The ruckus of the battle must have woken them up.

"Ti Xi's son tried to assassinate me!" Wu announced to them. "He tried to kill me so he could take over the gang prematurely! Help me!" The men hesitated. The Ban family's heir was sacrosanct. It was like a king's vizier asking them to subdue a crown prince.

"No!" Zhengyi cried out to them. "Wu's lying! He's been lying to you all! He killed Ti Xi!"

Lucky Cho was able to throw Fu Shan off of him and stand up. The cat scrambled to right itself and began stalking around Zhengyi's planted feet.

"How dare you!" Wu protested fiercely. His voice did not waver at all. It was as though he were telling the absolute truth. "How can you accuse me of such a thing? After I raised you! After everything I did for you!"

Wu and Zhengyi circled each other, waiting to see with whom the men would side.

Wu narrowed his eyes.

Zhengyi's gaze was solid.

"Who's your Mountain Master, me or him?" Wu cried. "You swore your oaths to me, not him!" That convinced several of the men to fall in with Wu. They started advancing on Zhengyi. They seemed to want to end this calmly, but Zhengyi noticed one or two draw knives. "Calm down Zhengyi," he heard someone say. And someone else: "There should be no disagreements between brothers."

Zhengyi started to panic. He threw rocks back at the advancing horde of men, whom he had formerly considered brothers, unable to unbalance more than a few. It only antagonized them, made them think he was the one who had started the fight, as Wu implied. More men drew knives. Some started to send rocks at him.

"Stop!" A rock wall rose up in front of Zhengyi and sank into the ground again, blocking several projectiles. Behind it stood its summoner, Zhengyi's earthbending tutor Shi Hua.

The room fell silent. "You are disobeying your Mountain Master," Wu growled.

"I serve the Ban family," Shi Hua said. "I served Ti Xi, and I will protect his son."

"He attacked the three of us first," Wu explained. "He's power hungry. I want Zhengyi to take over the clan one day too, but there's no excuse for attacking his sworn brothers."

"You killed my father!" Ti Xi snapped. "You're the one who murdered your brother!"

"I _loved_ Ti Xi! I knew him longer than anyone here, including you!" he said to Zhengyi. "I won't hear any more of these slurs! Aguta, Cho," Wu gestured to them, "take him away until he apologizes."

The two moved to apprehend Zhengyi. Zhengyi dropped back into a fighting stance, but before the men reached him Shi Hua knocked them back with twin tremors. "I stand with Zhengyi. I believe him."

Wu's expression hardened. He stared Shi Hua down. Shi Hua was not a large or powerful man. Even in terms of earthbending, it would be generous to call his abilities anything much above "decent." He was better at instruction than the art itself. He had always been relatively meek and good at taking orders. Wu had not expected this of him, and Zhengyi was taken aback by Hua's display of devotion.

Other men began to join him. "I won't touch the heir," one said. "This is the Ban clan! We're loyal to the Ban family!" cried another. In a few moments, a dozen men had joined Shi Hua.

"Anyone who spread such lies about his brothers is not loyal, and the Hei Chaoliu will not abide traitors!" Wu thundered, and in a flash he threw a rock at Shi Hua.

Hua reacted in kind with almost equal speed, but Wu anticipated this and dodged the stone, while Shi Hua took his right in the chest. Battle erupted between the two groups—civil war in the Ban compound. Zhengyi kept his focus on Wu. He would have his revenge. Barely any thoughts other than a driving urge to kill this betrayer could enter his head.

He rushed at Wu, darting around other clan members engaged in combat. Zhengyi screamed and fired fireballs at him. Wu called fragments of earth up to form small guards over his forearms, and deftly parried Zhengyi's blows. When the boy came within his reach, Wu grabbed and locked Zhengyi's arm and, with a turning step, spun him 180 degress and flung him towards the opposite wall. Zhengyi nearly lost his footing but stayed upright. Wu brought his arms together, fusing the rock guards. He sent them flying at Zhengyi.

Zhengyi dodged the rock, but before he could react Aguta pinned the shoulder of his vest to the wall with a _báijiǔ _icicle. That was all the time Wu needed to close the distance between himself and Zhengyi. The boy only had time to gasp at the icicle before another retainer nailed him in the stomach with a rock. With his bare hands, Wu struck Zhengyi's neck, ribs, shoulder, and leg. Zhengyi's body went tingly and the feeling left it. He slumped, unable to move any part of his body but his mouth, held up only by the icicle.

"Chi blocks," Wu said, flexing his neck and cracking his knuckles. "All these years that you've been training, so have I." Wu gathered the front of Zhengyi's vest into his fist, lifted his paralyzed body with one arm. "You're going somewhere very secure while you smarten up," he said. "I get the feeling it's going to be a very long time."

The thought that Wu was right to insult his intelligence entered Zhengyi's mind. _I should have been smarter. I know Wu. I should have known he was manipulating me. I should have known he'd be prepared. I've been so stupid,_ he thought._ I failed my father._

Wu suddenly swore loudly and dropped Zhengyi. A thrown knife had sliced his bicep and clattered to the floor. But it wasn't one of the combat knives the men used. It was an ordinary kitchen knife, a rather dull one. His head snapped towards the direction it had come from and saw Ying Su, standing there defiant, with her arm still extended.

The fighting had largely stopped while the men had watched Wu seize Zhengyi. Now they remained still as the woman they only knew as a housekeeper faced off with their boss.

Wu stalked toward her. Without pausing, he bent a gauntlet of rock around his arm. He ran his hand over it, and the gauntlet smoothed into a spike. Wu lunged at her with the spike, but Su drew two kukris from her sash and trapped Wu's spike. The knives rattled as she struggled with Wu. Su had been trained in Ban clan combat techniques before Wu took over, but he had counted on her letting her skills atrophy. Apparently he had been wrong.

"Get…away…from…" Su said, straining against Wu, "…HIM!" She kicked Wu in the stomach. He doubled over. Spinning, Su caught him in the head with another kick. Wu fell to the ground, dazed but not unconscious. The men were stunned for a moment.

Su knelt over Zhengyi, trying to get him over her shoulder. "Come on, we've gotta get you out of here," she panted.

The surprise of watching the maid knock out their boss had worn off on the Ban retainers, and they began their assault again. Su knocked away some of the smaller rocks they threw with her knives. Shi Hua called out to her and sent a large boulder careening into the opposite wall. She tumbled out of the way. The boulder blew Ti Xi's grand dining room chair through the wall and onto the lawn outside. Su quickly hefted Zhengyi on to her shoulders and escaped through the hole. Fu Shan hopped out after them.

Several men had already been stabbed, many of them Zhengyi's supporters. Shi Hua had finally recovered from his earlier blow and managed to haul himself up. He fought like mad to cover their escape. It was some of the best earthbending he had ever mustered, but he was fighting alone against—it looked like eight men to Su.

"I take the Ban family as my own! Mountain Master Ban is my father!" Hua cried. He was in a furor, calling out parts of the Hei Chaoliu initiation oath, as though to remind his former comrades of what they had sworn. "If I should betray my sworn brothers I shall be killed by ten thousand knives!" He parried one man's assault with a stone crag, then kicked him in the stomach. He knocked away the knife of the next. "If I should harm my sworn brothers, or bring trouble to them, I shall be killed by ten thousand knives!"

Su turned around just long enough to see Aguta slice through one of Shi Hua's earthen barricades with water and bury a knife in his stomach. Shi Hua heaved a dying breath. His eyes met Aguta's. "If I…should…" he rasped, "cause discord…among…my…broth…ers…" His breath left him. Aguta tossed the corpse aside.

Su ran on with the incapacitated Avatar on her back.

They hurried out of the compound. The chi blocks had worn off a small bit. Zhengyi was able to speak a little. "I'm s—sorry," Zhengyi panted, slurring his words as his lips hung loose.

"Worry about that later. We have to get to Bixia Abbey," Su said.

"Wh—where?" Zhengyi asked.

"You've seen it. It's that abbey about a mile down the road from the compound. I think I know someone who can help us there."

Zhengyi and Su hurried down the dirt road that wound through the fields and paddies of the Agrarian District. Fu Shan trotted along next to his wounded master. The stars were bright that night, and the wood frogs in the paddies were croaking loudly. It all seemed impossibly still after the fight they had just been in, but neither Zhengyi nor Su could appreciate it at that moment.

Su was focusing on getting Ti Xi's son to safety. Zhengyi was glad to be alive, but more than almost anything, he seethed with hatred at Wu. The only emotion he felt more strongly was anger at himself. All his life he had been helping Wu build up the world's greatest criminal empire and he had never even suspected something like this. He cursed himself for his stupidity.

"Go after them, you idiots!" Wu roared. He braced against the wall as he staggered to his feet. His hair had fallen out of place on he sides, hanging near his eyes. In an angry, forceful motion, he smoothed it back to its usual slick dome. He paused briefly as he looked around his men. "Get that kid back here!" he cried.

"It looks like they're headed for the abbey, boss," Cho observed, a hint of trepidation in his voice.

Wu clenched the cut on his arm tightly, trying to staunch the blood. It wasn't a threatening injury, but it stung. "And?" he shouted.

"Well…I mean, they're nuns…" Cho mumbled.

Wu grabbed him by the scruff of his robe and booted him squarely in the behind, as though to urge him to action and punish his hesitation at the same time. "I don't care!" he cried. He looked around at the other men. "Do you understand what's going to happen if the Avatar loses his loyalty to the clan? And comes back looking for revenge?" His tone was urgent, but he couldn't keep a bit of condescension out of his voice. He thought the danger of this situation should concern them more. "We have nothing without the clan! It supports you, it supports your families! What if he comes back as a full-fledged Avatar, cracking skulls for the city guard? You think the clan will survive that? You think the Hei Chaoliu will still exist?" he paused, continuing to meet the eyes of his men. "The young master is confused about his loyalty. If he is given the chance to turn against us he will become a great threat to his father's clan. If we get him back we can set him straight so that he can fulfill his destiny and become Mountain Master. That's what Ti Xi would have wanted. So it doesn't matter who gets in the way—if they keep the heir from his birthright they are a threat to the clan. Bring Zhengyi back alive at all costs! All enemies of the Ban clan must be eliminated!"


	8. Chapter 2, Part 4

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 2: The Godfather

Part 4

Su dragged Zhengyi up to the gate of the abbey. There was a large bell outside, and Su started ringing it, still holding the half-conscious Avatar. She kept an eye out for the Ban members, who were sure to be right behind them.

Soon a middle-aged nun appeared at the small door set into the larger gate. "Yes, who's calling?"

"Please help! The Ban clan is after us!" Su said. "This boy is the Avatar!"

The nun was dumbfounded at having such news thrust upon her in the middle of the night. "Wha—How do you…?" she stammered.

"Just let us in!"

The nun shook it off. "Apologies. Please, come in. All in need are welcome at the Bixia Abbey."

Su pushed her way through the door. "My name is Ying Su. The Mother Superior knows me," she explained. "I worked with her brother Xin Kao under Ban Ti Xi. We need a bed and a physician."

"This way," the nun said, leading them into a room. The nun lit a single candle that rested on a nightstand. Su put Zhengyi on the bed and knelt over him.

Another sister appeared at the threshold of the room. She was only about Zhengyi's age, but tall and stout for her years. "What's going on?" the young nun asked.

"Novice Fung, get Mother Xin! This is the Avatar! He's fleeing the Ban clan!" The girl bowed and ran from the room. The first nun struck Zhengyi's body in several places, and suddenly his joints unlocked. "How's that?" she asked.

" 'Little better," Zhengyi replied, rubbing his head. Fu Shan hopped up onto the bed, and Zhengyi began stroking him.

"I'll get you a cold compress," the nun said, leaving.

A moment passed after she left. Then Zhengyi spoke up. "Su…why didn't you tell me?"

She sighed. "I used to be one of your father's lieutenants. I was his top strategist. Only Wu and the underlings he had handpicked to participate in the coup knew what he had done, but I figured it out almost immediately. The whole reason he did it was to gain control of the Avatar. If Wu ever lost control of you, if you ever found out, he would have no more use for you, and would have killed you."

Zhengyi rubbed his head. A vague notion to snap at Su for saying something so obvius entered his head, but it was quickly swallowed up by thoughts questioning whether Wu had ever really cared about him.

"Wu was blackmailing me as well. He needed my strategic abilities, which was the only reason he let me live. He threatened to kill both of us if I didn't help him win battles. Ti Xi was…he was my best friend. I couldn't stand to fail him by losing his son." She looked wistfully at Zhengyi.

The Mother Superior swept into the room. The young novice followed her. "By all the spirits! Is this boy really the young Avatar?" she asked Su.

"He is."

"I'm Ban Ti Xi's son," Zhengyi put in.

"I'm Ying Su. I worked under Ban Ti Xi with your brother Kao. We met before, many years ago, when I delivered his daughter into your care."

"That's right…" the Mother Superior recalled. "Fifteen years ago you brought my niece here so that I could raise her. I remember you told me the Ban compound was no longer safe for her."

"Wait…you knew my father?" Novice Fung spoke up.

"Yes," Su said. "He was a good man. He was strong, and a true friend to Ti Xi."

"You mean…he was a criminal?" Fung asked, shocked.

"I had, er, kept my brother's…background from her," the Mother Superior explained.

"Not all Hei Chaoliu members are wicked," Su told the girl. "We may not respect every law or social rule there is, but we're not monsters. We have our own code of honor that we hold our men to—at least, in theory. Your father was very virtuous, and one of the most loyal people I ever knew. That was why One-Eyed Wu killed him."

"One-Eyed Wu, the merchant?" Novice Fung asked skeptically.

"He's not just a merchant. He's the boss of the Ban clan," Su explained. "And he got that way by killing Ban Ti Xi and Xin Kao." She explained again the entire story of Wu's betrayal.

Zhengyi sat silent and brooding the whole time. Even though Su mentioned him several times, he said nothing, intently petting Fu Shan. He acted like he wasn't even in the room.

"Now we need a way to escape and a safe place to spend the night," Su concluded.

"Yes, I remember you now, Miss Ying. It's a terrible story. Well, you can certainly stay here," the Mother Superior offered. "The Bixia Abbey would be honored to accommodate the Avatar."

"That's very kind," Su said, "but Wu's men are sure to track us here sooner or later. I've already put you in too much—"

There was a thunderous crash. The large front gate of the abbey collapsed into the courtyard and Ban fighters, led by Aguta, flooded through the space it formerly occupied.

"—danger," Su finished disappointedly, reacting to the noise. Zhengyi stood up, readying himself to fight.

The Mother Superior put out an arm to halt him. "Don't worry. We can take care of ourselves," she grinned. She, Fung, and the other nun rushed into the courtyard. Nuns were beginning to assemble in the courtyard, some already grappling with the Ban fighters. "Sisters, the Avatar is among us!" the Mother Superior announced. "These men are after him! Defend the Bridge to the Spirit World with your lives!"

The nuns held their ground as the gangsters attacked. The nuns who could earthbend did so, but even the rest of them easily held their own. Almost to the person, the Bixia nuns bravely intercepted the charging Ban fighters. The nuns employed some sort of grappling martial art, locking the fighters' arms, tripping them, throwing them to the ground.

"Fung!" the Mother Superior called to her charge. The girl was occupied just then, grabbing a gang member by his shirt and slamming him to the ground. His head left a crack in the tile of the courtyard floor. As soon as he was dispatched, Fung turned to her aunt. "Get someone to escort Miss Ying and the Avatar!"

"Please let me go with the Avatar," Fung bowed. The Mother Superior looked at her. "I want to find out about my father. Aiding the Bridge to the Spirit World would be a great honor, and I…I feel my destiny is linked to his."

The Mother Superior grinned. She placed her hands on Fung's shoulders. "So do I."

Another Ban fighter rushed at the Mother Superior. She blocked his knife and twisted his arm behind his back. She held his arm, using his own momentum to guide his face into a column. "Go," she said more urgently, "take them through the catacombs!"

"May the Grace of Jian Lao be with you," Fung said quickly, bowing.

"I will pray for you," the Mother Superior said. "Don't forget to do your meditations," she added, a last note of familiarity and playfulness as her niece departed in the confusion.

Novice Fung attempted to return to the Avatar, but as she ran two armed Ban fighters intercepted her. The first one stabbed at her, but she guided his knife away and seized his shirt with her other hand. She wrapped her leg inside his and swung it out. His legs pulled out from under him, the man hurtled to the ground.

The other man stabbed at her, but Fung again caught the attacker's arm. She turned her back to the attacker. She thrust out her posterior as she pulled down on the man's arm, using her shoulder as a fulcrum. He flipped over and was handily laid out on the ground, unconscious.

Before Fung could move on, another fighter appeared. The girl grabbed his left sleeve. She stepped forward, wrapping her left foot behind his right. Another inward step of her right foot and she simply sat down. The attacker fell backwards, off balance, with Fung sitting on him. A quick chop to the neck neutralized him. Fung hopped up and ran over to the Avatar's room.

Zhengyi and Su were just about to leave when Fung entered their room. "Come with me," she said. "I can get you out of here. There's an underground path into the city."

"Screw that!" Zhengyi barked. "I wanna fight! I want Wu's head!" He punched his palm.

"You're still injured. You can't fight," Su said. "You'd only lose again."

"I didn't see Wu with them. If what you say about his double identities is true, he could never afford to be seen leading an attack on an abbey," Fung added.

Zhengyi said nothing.

"Let's go," Fung said after a moment. Su followed. A little more reluctantly, Zhengyi draped Fu Shan over his shoulder and followed Fung as well.

They hurried into the complex of nuns' cells at the back of he courtyard. They ran down a few hallways, still hearing the shouts and crashes of rocks from the battle. They went out a back door into a cemetery.

A patchwork of turf and stone spread before them. The names and dates of the people of the Agrarian District were all around. Lives summed up in fewer than ten characters. The nuns performed funerary services for the local people of the Agrarian District, and this was the ground where they gave back to the sacred earth those that had passed on. The Abbey had stood for a few hundred years, and the ground was littered with graves. Su and Fung had come very close to going into one.

Further ahead, the inner wall of Ba Sing Se cut the sky in half. They were only a few yards from it, and it towered above them. At two invisible points out there in the darkness it appeared to curve into the outer wall like sky meeting earth, like the real horizon it blocked from view.

Panting, Fung and Su reached a nondescript mausoleum roughly in the center of the graveyard. Zhengyi, tagging along on still-aching legs, caught up a moment later. Fung threw open the door. She removed a torch from a holder on the wall and lit it. The sounds of the battle had now all but faded away. The trio descended a small staircase to a burial vault, containing a large statue of Jian Lao, a spirit of earth, permanence, and moral rectitude, as well as the patron spirit of the Bixia Abbey. The statue depicted him as a stately bearded man in armor, as was the custom. As she approached it, Fung clapped her hands once and bowed. She gave her torch to Su, then grasped the statue's base as though it were a wrestling opponent. She summoned all her strength, grunted, heaved, and sweated, but soon she had dragged the statue away from the wall.

Behind it was an opening, a dark tunnel cut into the very earth.

"Why…why is this here?" Su asked.

"It was built when the abbey was founded. Makes it easier to get into the city for charity work and stuff. No dealing with gate guards or entrance passes. And with all the gangs around, it makes sense to have an escape route."

They entered the tunnel, moving step by step through the darkness. Trying to improve the mood, Su struck up a conversation. "I'm impressed with how you and the sisters handled the clan. I wouldn't have expected nuns to be such capable fighters."

"It's called 'Twining Legs Method.' It's an ancient martial art, as old as the city, the sisters say. We study it as a form of meditation. When the body and mind are focused, so is the spirit."

"It, uh, seems a little…rough for a meditation technique," Su observed. It was a little blunt, but her curiosity got the better of her.

"Anything can be done for the health of the soul if you keep Jian Lao in your heart when you do it," Fung beamed at her.

Su returned a weak smile.

Everything was silent again for a few moments.

"How did he beat me?" Zhengyi asked angrily, to no one in particular. He held Fu Shan on his shoulder with one hand. "I sparred Wu a hundred times and every time I beat him! How did he do all this?" Zhengyi had stopped walking, crying out and letting his rage echo through the tunnels.

Su and Fung turned. Su looked at him with sympathetic eyes. "He knew your moves," Su said. She turned around and continued down the tunnel. Fung hustled a few paces ahead to light the way. "He must have let you win all those times. He said he paid all your teachers, and it's true," Su continued as they walked. "Wu's a lot of things, but he isn't stupid. I doubt he expected you to hear it from his own mouth, but he did know you would find out one day. He probably thought I'd tell you. So he must have made sure your instructors all trained you slightly wrong. He must have had them ingrain very specific flaws throughout your training, and, with knowledge of these flaws, it would be very easy for him to beat you. A very thorough strategy," Su concluded, noticing a green glow building up ahead.

Within a few steps the glow started to drown out Fung's torch. Soon it was everywhere, bright as day. It was emanating from a chamber at the end of the tunnel. They emerged from the tunnel and entered this chamber to a breathtaking sight: Glowing green crystals practically covered the ceiling and walls of the chamber. They had seen these crystals used as light sources on the surface, but never concentrated in such beautiful formations of so many crystals, glowing so brightly. It was very welcome after the trek through the tunnel.

Su gaped. "How beautiful!" Fung exclaimed. "I never knew this was here."

Zhengyi was absolutely indifferent. He barely glanced up as he entered the chamber.

"We can rest here for tonight," Fung said. "We're safe by now. Tomorrow we can follow the rest of the path underground into the heart of the city."

"All right. I think we all need a rest by now," Su said, turning to look at Zhengyi. The boy only put Fu Shan on the ground and stormed right past both of them. He went down a small tunnel adjoining the chamber and disappeared from sight.

Su and Fung exchanged concerned looks.

* * *

Taking a wide stance, One-Eyed Wu bent the earth on which Ti Xi's ornate chair rested. He lifted it carefully and tipped it at just the right place, returning the chair to its original place at the end of the dining room. The hole in the wall would have to wait, however.

Exasperated, Wu flopped into the chair. He enjoyed an instant of silence before his men burst back into the room.

"Were they at the abbey?" Wu asked his men urgently.

"Sorry, boss," Aguta said.

"Forgive us, Mountain Master," Lucky Cho said fearfully, bowing low. "They were there, but the nuns helped them escape. They must have gone into the city."

Wu screamed a curse, but quickly composed himself. He addressed the assembled, bowing men with barely concealed anger. "The Avatar could become an existential threat to the clan. As of right now, his return is our top priority. I will not tolerate failure in this matter. I want Zhengyi brought back alive." Wu thought for a moment. "None of us want to see him dead, but if he gives you the chance, you may have to take it. Now get back out there and find that kid!" he barked. The men all bowed more, backed out of the room and scampered away to fulfill their master's command.

Wu relaxed his posture in the chair, beginning to rub his chin pensively. "Yes, this could work," he mused. "I may need to contract some outside help."

* * *

Zhengyi pounded his fist into the rock walls of the cave, cursing himself. He fought tears. He was a Mountain Master's son, a gangster. He wasn't supposed to cry. It made him curse himself even more. But how could he not, when his whole life had been a lie? His godfather, a man who raised him, a man who—deep down—he thought he loved, had killed his father.

_I can't believe I helped him! I was so stupid! I made him what he is!_

He knew he was directly responsible for Wu's success. The Ban clan wouldn't be half what it was if he had not used his powers to help Wu. And now, he knew, Wu was definitely going to use the same riches he had been winning for Wu for fifteen years to hire assassins and bounty hunters to track him down.

And worse, Zhengyi felt he had let his father down. He had aided his family's worst enemy. In the Hei Chaoliu code of honor, death was too generous a punishment for what Wu had done, but Zhengyi had been unable to do anything to him.

_He stole my clan! My family's name! It's heart and soul! And he lives like a king because of it! _Zhengyi began throwing punches into the close-in walls of the narrow tunnel._ The clan _is _my family's honor, and it belongs to a member of the Ban family! _He threw another punch. Fissures crackled out from where he struck as his earthbending subconsciously activated. _I want it back! _He threw another. _I want Wu dead! _Another. _I want revenge! _

He let out an anguished cry, stomping his foot, violently shaking the earth all about him. But Zhengyi wasn't afraid of a cave-in. He didn't care. His old life was so irretrievably gone he felt as though he might as well be dead already.

He yelled and swore more, and sank to his knees. He started to sob and smashed his fists into the ground. He pounded them into the walls around him, into stalagmites, into anything around. He threw his head back, crying out Wu's name.

Now there were no distractions, no one to confuse him or muddle his emotions. Zhengyi was alone. Alone with his anger. He was like a head of steam. Wu had stoked the flame fueling it with fifteen years of inclining Zhengyi towards aggression, but tamped a cover over it with his words just before it could blow up in his face.

Now, however, there was no one to put a cover on him, and all that build up was due to blow. Suddenly it did.

Zhengyi felt an odd sensation. It was…indescribable. Zhengyi gave himself over to his anger and was overpowered.

His consciousness was gone now. His eyes and mouth began to glow like a thousand stars lived inside his body. His clan tattoo was also lit up, as bright as any of his other parts.

His fists clenched harder. The earth beneath him buckled. Fissures crackled out, radiating away from him. The ground shook, then the walls shook, and then the ceiling shook violently.

Su and Fung suddenly felt it in the upper chamber. "What's going on?" Fung called over the rumbling.

"I think Zhengyi's earthbending for some reason!" Su called back.

The shaking grew worse. A stalagmite cracked off of the ceiling and plummeted to the ground next to them. Fung and Su dove to either side, evading it.

"Doesn't he realize we're in here?" Fung shouted.

"I don't know, but we have to stop him! If this gets any worse he could rupture a load-bearing rock formation and bring five city blocks down on us!" Another large rock fell just next to Su. "We have to get to him!"

Rocks started falling faster and faster. It was a mad dash through the chamber as Fung and Su ducked and weaved around the rocks and crystals. Fung dived away from one, spun around another, and sidestepped a third. Su bounced from foot to foot, narrowly dodging each rock, in a stuttering run for the ancillary tunnel. Fu Shan skittered around the heels of the two women following their lead to escape.

They made it out of the chamber and made their way to where Zhengyi was. It was slow going, as they had to compensate for the violent quaking.

When they made it to him his eyes and tattoo were glowing, his hands were balled into tight fists, and he was hovering two feet off the ground. "Of course!" Su exclaimed, still shouting over the rumbling. "He's entered the Avatar state!"

"What do we do?" asked Fung urgently.

"I don't know!" Su called back.

The rumbling grew stronger and louder.

Then Fu Shan approached the Avatar. He sat up and placed a paw gently on Zhengyi's foot.

The rumbling and shaking started to diminish. It grew quieter. Fung and Su found it easier and easier to stand.

Zhengyi levitated to the ground and fell to his knees. He placed a hand on his pet and closed his eyes. A moment passed. Fung and Su waited anxiously, still alert. Zhengyi began stroking his cat.

For a long time, nothing happened. Zhengyi knelt there petting his pygmy puma with his eyes closed. Su and Fung left the silence intact until Zhengyi's eyes burst open.

"I need to train," he announced. His face was stone. "I'm going to kill Wu for what he's done to my family. I need better skills to do it. I'll learn air, and lightning, and all the other bending techniques Wu has never faced."

"Yes, I agree," Su said. "Improving your skills is the best way to deal with Wu."

"Revenge?" Fung said. "That won't make you happy. It won't solve—"

"Shut up! You don't know a thing about it!" Zhengyi snapped. Fung was unsettled by his anger.

"With all due respect, dear," Su soothed her, "One-Eyed Wu is a danger to everyone. He's evil and ruthless. His wealth and influence are incredible. He already runs the whole Lower and Middle Ring. I believe he means to grab more and more power until…well, I don't know when he'll be satisfied. His ambition is limitless. Maybe he wants to take over the whole Earth Kingdom. Considering his wealth and power, it would only take a matter of months for him to make it to the Earth king's inner circle, and from there, who knows? We can't let that happen. It would be better for the world if he were to meet his end."

"I…well, I guess," Fung muttered, feeling slightly sheepish. "I guess you would know."

Ying Su looked to Zhengyi. "If you're going to retrain, you only have a limited time," she said.

"I will retrain," said Zhengyi, staring straight ahead with great intensity. The green light was very strong just above him, casting palls of shadow down from his eye sockets, nose, and chin. "Wu can send all the assassins he likes. I'll train until I'm unbeatable. I will return to challenge Er Shi Wu, and I WILL avenge my father."


	9. Chapter 3, Part 1

_Water. Fire. Air. Earth. For thousands of years, the Avatar has been a paragon of righteousness and order to all nations. But must this always be the case? Does the universe choose righteous individuals, or has the world just been lucky so far? 840 years before Sozin's War, an Avatar was born into the Hei Chaoliu, organized gangs that all but held Ba Sing Se in thrall. Fifteen years after his birth, civil war has erupted between Ba Sing Se and Omashu over which great city deserves to lead the Earth Kingdom, and the gangs have not abated. Only the Avatar can stop the war, depose the corrupt Earth King, and return balance to the world. But the circumstances of Avatar Zhengyi's birth have lead him to forsake the Avatar's duties for a selfish life dedicated to what he calls "justice" and most call "revenge." The world waits as he struggles to choose between his two roles: the Avatar, and…The Heir of Ban._

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 3: The Game

Part 1

Ying Su held out a handful of mushrooms to Zhengyi's back. He did not turn around, remaining seated with his knees tucked in and his arms wrapped around them.

"It's all we could find for breakfast," she told him. She paused, regarding him. "…Zhengyi, did you sleep last night?"

"A little," he mumbled. He reached over and scratched the stomach of a sleeping Fu Shan.

"You know, I spent a long time trying to find us some breakfast in these crystal caves. You could at least eat the mushrooms," Fung added, perching her large frame on a rock a few yards away, eating her own mushrooms.

Zhengyi eyed her. "I'm not interested in breakfast," he said. "I just want to find more bending masters and start training. I want to get on my way to killing Wu."

"You need to get safely out of the city before you start looking for masters," Su told him, placing the mushrooms down and dusting her hands on her waist-skirt. "I don't want to stick around to find out what kind of freaks Wu hires to hunt you down."

"But how are we going to get out of the city?" Fung asked, still chewing. "No one's been allowed through the wall without a permit since the civil war started. Zhengyi can't even tunnel us under; earthbending guards patrol all the escape routes under the wall."

Su turned to her. "I know. That's why we're getting a permit." She had clearly already hatched a plan.

"From where?" Zhengyi asked. "The only guy I ever knew who had a pass was Wu."

"Only top city administrators and the very wealthiest nobles and merchants are supposed to have them," Su explained. "But the Chaoliu Mountain Masters all have forged or illegally purchased ones so they can smuggle drugs past the wall."

Fung stood up. "You think we can get our hands on a Hei Chaoliu clan's travel permit?" she asked, rather skeptical. Zhengyi turned around and listened more closely.

"I think it's the _best _way to get one," Su replied. "Zhengyi, before all this happened you had just spent weeks fighting the Tong clan for Wu." The Avatar's skin prickled at the thought of his past mistakes, and how he had actually helped Wu become so wealthy and powerful. Su took no notice and continued with her plan. "The Tongs hate Wu, and they're some of the only people in Ba Sing Se that he doesn't control. They also have no idea of your identity. As long as we disguise our tattoos, we can hide in plain sight working for the Tongs. Wu would never find us. All we have to do is bide our time until we can get a position moving the contraband, and then the Tongs will hand us passports on a silver platter."

"That must be more difficult than you make it sound though," said Fung. "I mean, can't we just stroll up to the wall, have Zhengyi bend three elements at once, and say 'Hey, this is the Avatar. Now let us through?' "

"No, if we—" Su began.

"I wouldn't get to kill Wu," Zhengyi said coldly. "They'd haul me off to save people, or fight for Ba Sing Se on the front lines or something."

"Wu has the whole city fooled. No one realizes how dangerous he is," Su said. She seemed very intense. "Zhengyi is the _only _one who can stop him. Zhengyi would have no chance of getting back to Wu. We absolutely _cannot_ allow that to happen."

"Oh…uh, all right." Xin Fung started to wonder what kind of people she had fallen in with, but she put it out of her mind. The army did have a tendency to appropriate things it deemed useful to the war effort—food, money, men—with little regard for the previous owners' thoughts on the matter. Earth King Jinling would certainly covet something as useful as the Avatar.

"Then we had better get going, right?" Fung said. She started off for the cave exit, an underground tunnel that wound into the middle of Ba Sing Se.

Su started after her, but turned back to Zhengyi. "Are you done with breakfast?" The boy got up and scooped up his mushrooms off the rock as he brushed past her, chewing them as he walked.

Ying Su smiled, looking satisfied.

* * *

In the back of an alley in the middle of Ba Sing Se's Lower Ring, an empty crate tipped over, revealing a meaty arm coming out of the hole it had formerly covered. Soon the arm was joined by its twin, and together they hoisted the rest of Fung out of the hole. After she was out, she reached back in to give Su a hand up. While she did that, Zhengyi popped up out of the ground a few feet away, holding Fu Shan. He set the cat down and nonchalantly flicked some dirt from his shoulder. "So what now?" he asked.

"Well, we're in Tong territory now," Su said. Her breath was slightly labored. "But before we can start trying to attract their attention we need to disguise our tattoos. We'll have to buy something…maybe heavy make-up or bandages. Zhengyi will need a shirt."

"Yeah, I should probably get something different to wear," Fung said, holding her arms wide and looking down at her stiff nun's outfit. Her stomach rumbled. "…And some real food. Except we don't have any money," she added.

Su placed a hand to her chin in thought, but Zhengyi already knew how to get money. A man was walking past the alley just then. Zhengyi pulled his fist to his waist and the man slid into the alley on a shifting patch of earth. Instantly, Zhengyi trapped the man against the alley wall by putting spikes of earth through his clothes. "Gimme your money!" he barked. Confused and panicked, the man hesitated for a moment. Zhengyi put one hand on the man's throat and bent a fist of rock around the other. "I said gimme your money!" The man threw a small sack onto the ground. Zhengyi released him and pushed him out of the alley using the same technique with which he had dragged the man in. He scrambled away.

"Did you just mug him?" Fung cried. "I can't believe you just mugged someone!" She wouldn't have believed the Avatar could be so mercenary if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes.

"Here." Zhengyi tossed her the sack of money. "Go buy those clothes."

"I'm not using stolen money!" she railed, flinging the purse back at him. "Don't you understand how…how…how _evil_ that was?"

Zhengyi looked at her icily. "We needed money, I got money."

"I knew you grew up a criminal, but I guess I didn't realize how cruel you really are," Fung said, with an air of curiosity in her voice. She had thought the Avatar would just be naturally benevolent, but the fact that Zhengyi was, in fact, a Black Current gangster had just hit her. As Zhengyi ignored her, inspecting the coin purse, Fung closed her eyes and seemed to cool down. "That doesn't matter," she said. "No matter how you act, you are the Avatar, and Jian Lao has given me the honor of guiding you. I have faith that I can make you a good person, and I'm going to stick with you until that happens, no matter what you do," she said condescendingly.

Zhengyi laughed in her face. "You can _make_ me a good person? Fine. In that case," he laughed, and furrowed his brow. He began dramatically straining his whole body and making a corresponding straining sound. Fu Shan looked up at him curiously. Fung's body tensed with alarm. Was he going to try and fight her? Or bend?

Then Zhengyi made a fart noise with his tongue. There was a beat. "I'm a good person now!" he announced sardonically. "So why don't you go back home and quit following me!" he barked at her.

Fung wasn't amused.

"All right, you two stop it this minute!" Su yelled, breaking up the fight. "Listen, you both better realize—"

"Yo, kid!" A boy a few years older than Zhengyi came striding over with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He had a coarse mop of hair and wore his green yi open, like a coat. "You just mug that guy?" the boy asked.

"So what if I did?" Zhengyi asked, tough as ever.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," the boy said, condescendingly wagging his finger back and forth. "Ya' in Tong clan territory. Nobody commits a crime around here unless Tong Suei Sing gives the okay."

Zhengyi noticed the mandrill-rhino tattoos on the guy's forearms. He was definitely a Tong member. Zhengyi furtively grabbed the hem of his vest, making sure it didn't accidentally shift and reveal his Ban clan pygmy-puma tattoo.

"The Tong clan?" Su said. "That's…that's great! We wanted to join the Tong clan, actually."

"Then why'd I catch you tryin' to hustle in our territory?"

The kids looked at her. Su would certainly be the best at making up a cover story. "I'm sorry. We just needed the money. We moved here from the East Side a few days ago. These are my kids, and…and their father just died. I haven't found a job yet, and I heard the Tong clan takes care of people around here. These two would make great clan brothers. They can really fight, and I'm a very good cook, if you need one."

The Tong boy eyed Zhengyi. "Well, I liked what you did to that guy. You really put the fear in 'im," he chuckled. "An' ya seem pretty tough…Sure, I'll take ya for an audience wit' the boss. We can always use new blood. You can call me Tsi." He bowed slightly to them.

Su thought of the pygmy puma tattoo on her back. And Zhengyi's was barely concealed. _Why doesn't that idiot wear a shirt? _she thought.

"Um, Tsi…we, uh, have a few belongings we'd like to retrieve before we go, if we could," Su told him, buying time. They needed to cover their tattoos somehow, no two ways about it.

Tsi was a little annoyed. "Sure. I got somethin' else I gotta do around here anyway. But I don't come an' go at your convenience. I ain't a messenger boy. If you don't meet me back here in an hour you can forget the offer."

"Thank you," Su said.

Tsi marched off. "One hour," he called.

Su looked to the kids. "I'm not going to use stolen money," Fung said dismissively.

"I know how you feel, and Zhengyi, what you did was wrong," Su said, "but we don't have a lot of choices right now. Fung, it's not like we can give it back. We might as well use it to help our mission."

Fung looked away.

"It's not so bad. We'll get the clothes…some food…"

Fung remembered how hungry she was. She was a big girl, and usually expended a lot of energy training, so she was used to big meals. And she had eaten nothing but a few mushrooms for almost a full day.

"All right," she said. "I just hope this plan works."

* * *

"What are we doing in this neighborhood?" Lucky Cho asked One-Eyed Wu, glancing around at the run-down, seedy-looking buildings. Poor citizens peered out of cobbled-together shacks, watching as Wu and his entourage of Cho and Aguta ambled between their homes.

Wu said nothing.

The men came to a "restaurant," which was actually a dai zhiwu den, called "The White Mountain." Wu hesitated a bit, wrinkling his nose at the prospect of entering the place, but momentarily he did.

The only light in the place came from the doorway and a few candles throwing a ureic yellow glow. Addicts lay sprawled on mats lined up over the whole length of the floor, half-clutching pipes and spark rocks in hands with no strength left. There were several loud coughs as Wu crossed between the mats, looking each of the half-conscious junkies over.

Finally it became clear who Wu had been looking for. In the back of the place lay a massive human being. He was at least 6-foot-6, 250 pounds. He was stout and barrel-chested, with a bit of a gut on him, but where plant addicts were usually thought of as being emaciated, this man looked as strong as an ox-sloth. Yet he took a pull of his pipe as Wu approached him, all the same.

"Bi Junren," Wu said. The large man's eyes slowly rolled toward him. "The war hero," Wu grinned with satisfaction, having found his prize. "Five years ago they called you 'the Moose-lion of Guiqaio.' You single-handedly held off a company of Omashu soldiers while the rest of your battalion regrouped and made a wheeling motion, coming back to win the battle…And now look at you." Wu shook his head disappointedly. "What happened, Junren?"

Junren looked quizzically at him, wondering how this stranger knew so much, unsure if it was all just an effect of the drug.

"I've heard your story, Junren. Maybe everyone else forgot you, but I remember," Wu said, in his most sympathetic voice. "I know what happened. You were stabbed at Guiqiao. The surgeons gave you dai zhiwu when they sewed you back up, but they couldn't fix you completely. The tip of the knife broke off in the wound and they couldn't pull it out. Too close to your liver. You couldn't serve anymore with that injury, and everyone just forgot about you, didn't they? …But you'd had a taste of the plant, and now that's the only thing that keeps the pain away." Wu knelt down next to the reclining addict. "See, I know who you are, Junren. I understand how people treat you, and I know how it feels," he said soothingly. "The question is: do you know who I am?"

Junren looked down and chuckled softly. He looked back at Wu. "No, who are you?" he slurred.

Wu reached into his robe and pulled out a small sack. "I'm the man who can give you more plant than you've ever seen." Wu opened the sack, revealing the dai zhiwu inside. Junren eyed the dried white leaves inside with hunger. "I just want you to do a little job for me. Your strength is renowned, Junren. I want you to bring that strength to bear against someone who thinks himself strong. An enemy of mine. Then I'll give you enough plant to smoke yourself into a coma and back out again." Wu grinned as Junren's bleary eyes stayed locked on the drug.

* * *

Tong Suei Sing gulped down a mouthful of _saké_ as the gambler to his right laid down his tiles, chuckling triumphantly. "Bing jiu," the gambler said, naming both his hand and the game he was currently playing. The lacquered pips totaled five on one tile and four on the other, adding up to nine, the highest score possible in most situations.

"Not so fast," the Tong Mountain Master responded, dropping his own tiles. They were a 6-6 and a 2-6. The 6-6 was considered a special tile, allowing Sing to retain his hand's full value of ten. Now it was his turn to chuckle. "I told you, no one beats me in my own house," Sing grinned, scooping the pile of wagered gold pieces toward himself. The other gambler stared at the table in disbelief, then buried his face in his hands. Sing took another swig of sake and wiped his small moustache and goatee.

Sing was like Wu, and all good clan leaders, in that he loved money. But unlike Wu, he positively wallowed in it. His clothes had gold and silver threading, his saké was the most expensive in the city, he ate only the finest foods. He was still somewhat young, and surrounded himself with trophy girlfriends. He considered himself a ladies man, and his wardrobe reflected this: he wore the latest, most expensive fashions. He even used expensive, imported solutions of animal fat and oil to style his hair, which hung shoulder-length and framed his face like parentheses.

He was about to begin another game when his clan accountant, Heung Sai, approached him with Tsi in tow. Sai was a slim man, with thin limbs that tapered into slender fingers. His hair was close-cropped and crowned with the small Earth Kingdom-style bun. He wore half-moon spectacles, a neat beard, and twin tufts of moustache hair that drooped next to the corners of his mouth. "Um, excuse me, sir," he interrupted. Sing put a forearm on the gambling table, twisting around his chair to listen to his lieutenant. "We have a few more prospective recruits," Sai said, cocking his head toward the gambling parlor's doorway where Zhengyi, Fung, and Su stood.

Zhengyi wore his usual stony expression. He now wore a new yi under his vest to be sure his tattoos were covered. Fung was now casually dressed in an olive green yi with the sleeves cut off and brown ku tucked into military-surplus ankle bracers. She tied the yi with a sash, to which she had tied one item from her nun's outfit: a pendant with the symbol of Jian Lao. Her bangs were pulled back over her head and gathered into a messy ponytail, while more black locks were left at the sides, framing her face. Her eyes darted around the room. Su snapped into a bow once she realized the Tong boss was looking at her.

Sing kept his eyes on the three people at the door. "Who vouches for them, you?" he asked, now pointing and looking to Tsi.

"I saw the boy mug a guy," Tsi said. "Seemed tough. He's got the attitude ta be an outlaw, at least. The other two are 'is mom an' sister. Said they wanna join the Tong clan, an' I know your orders was to recruit everyone we could find, so I said I'd take 'em ta see ya."

Sing scowled inwardly. One-Eyed Wu and the Ban clan had won so much turf and drugs over the last several years that they could afford to pay better than any other clan. People generally joined the clan that controlled the area that they lived in, but anyone who could get away with it—that is, anyone who wasn't afraid of reprisals from the clan that claimed the area he or she lived in, should they be caught working for the Ban—joined the Ban clan, and the Ban controlled what was by far the largest territory anyway. Sing had been forced to accept any candidates he could for his clan.

"Yeah, all right," Sing conceded, turning back to the bing jiu table. "Tell 'em I'll swear 'em in tomorrow with the others, then test 'em," he finished, beginning to stack the ceramic tiles into neat piles of four. He took another gulp of booze with his other hand as Tsi and Sai bowed to him, and Tsi moved to relay the news to the new recruits.

* * *

Su, Fung, and Zhengyi slept outside that night, in an alley near the gambling house. They had bought a few bedrolls and camping supplies with the remaining stolen money, figuring they would need it soon, once they left Ba Sing Se.

The next day they showed up early at the gambling house that served as the Tong clan headquarters. Twelve other initiates were preparing to be sworn in. Su and the children began preparing themselves as well, because it did take some time.

Tsi met them and let them know everything they had to do in order to get ready for the ritual. Zhengyi and Su were quite familiar with it, and Su had begun explaining it to Fung, but it was nice of Tsi to make sure they were informed. Performing the ritual incorrectly was considered disrespectful, and clans were known to kill initiates for offenses even less than that.

Hei Chaoliu initiation rituals were not as elaborate as they once were, but were still much more sanctimonious affairs than one might expect from a criminal organization. They represented the last vestiges of the honor of the Black Current, back when it was a paramilitary rebel group. Their elaborate and ceremonial nature helped instill respect for the organization in new recruits. As part of the ritual, male recruits were required to strip to the waist, but females were allowed to wear wrappings over their breasts.

Knowing this, Zhengyi had wrapped bandages over his tattoo before he had even shown up at the gambling house, hoping to disguise them as an injury. Fung, of course, had no tattoos to cover, and Ying Su was fortunately able to cover all the tattoos that marked her as a Ban member with her wrappings.

Zhengyi and the others assembled in formation with the twelve other recruits. Most were younger than twenty, and a few were even younger than Zhengyi. One couldn't have been older than thirteen.

Incense and statues had been set up in very specific locations around the large main room, in accordance with feng shui. The bing jiu tables had been temporarily rearranged to one side of the casino floor. Fu Shan perched on one of these, watching his friends. Tong Suei Sing was seated in a grand chair at one end of the room, before which an altar had been set up. On the altar were one bowl of wine and one bowl of water. Between the entrance to the room and the altar three "gates" had been set up. One gate consisted of two Tong officers standing with knives crossed, the next was earth from two pots that had been bent into an arch, and the last was a bamboo hoop painted yellow. The initiates entered and stripped down to their trousers, as the ceremony dictated. They assembled before the first gate, all kneeling on one knee.

A woman in green robes, whose nose was bent noticeably to the left from some trauma Zhengyi could only guess at, began reciting the ceremony to the assembled initiates: "Proceed no further if you are not loyal." Another retainer clapped a set of wooden blocks, once.

"I am loyal," said each initiate successively, as he or she passed through the first gate.

"Before the Gate of the Earth, all are brothers," the woman recited. The wooden blocks were clapped again.

"We are brothers," each initiate said in turn, passing through the gate.

"Through the Gate of the Spirit are born the children of the Black Current." The wooden blocks clapped.

"I take the Tong family as my own. Mountain Master Tong is my father." They passed through the bamboo hoop.

Except when it came to Zhengyi's turn. "Mountain Master Tong is…" He hesitated, forcing himself to say the next words. His tattoo seemed to burn under the wrappings. All eyes in the room fell upon him, waiting to see if he would slip up. "…is my father," he said finally, dropping his head. He proceeded through, followed by more initiates.

They washed their faces in the bowl of water on the altar and were given new white robes to wear, symbolizing their rebirth. Then came the oath-swearing. There were thirty-five ritual oaths each initiate was required to affirm, all written out on a yellow scroll, which the woman with the bent nose presently placed on the altar for the initiates to read. They recited thirty-five oaths about loyalty and courtesy toward their new "family," that they would help their sworn brothers in any situation, that they would never sell out the clan to the law or to rival clans for any reason. Each oath also mentioned a specific form of punishment for the swearer, should it ever be broken. They were the same oaths Zhengyi had heard Shi Hua die reciting only two days ago. "If any of my sworn brothers are killed, arrested, or have departed the city, I will assist their wives and children in their time of need. If I respond to their difficulties with indifference, I shall suffer death by eating of the White Jade. If I should harm my sworn brothers, or otherwise bring trouble to them, I shall be killed by ten thousand knives," Zhengyi intoned dully, remembering Hua's voice. "If I should cause discord among my sworn brothers, I shall be killed by ten thousand knives."

When the oath-swearing was done, the bent-nosed woman burned the scroll and sprinkled its ashes into the bowl of wine on the altar. All of the initiates drank a sip of wine, and when they were done it was passed to Tong Suei Sing. To symbolize their bond, Sing drank as well. He drained it and then held the bowl out before them. "I treat my children justly," he recited. "Loyalty will be met with rewards." He turned the empty bowl upside-down. "Disloyalty will be met with vengeance." He threw the bowl to the ground, shattering it.

"In order for your Mountain Master to measure your fighting ability," the bent-nosed woman continued, assuming a place next to Sing's chair, "each of you will face three opponents in unarmed combat for five minutes. If you cannot at least remain standing, Master Tong will not consider you for the position of a clan soldier. These are the conditions you have agreed to. Children must obey the father," she announced.

In earlier times, no one without at least a modicum of fighting ability would even be considered for a Chaoliu clan, but with Wu around the other clans could no longer be so selective. Sing swore in everyone willing to join, then tested their ability so he could place his retainers in suitable jobs. Poor fighters could always work as cooks or dealers in the gambling houses where the Tong clan made most of its money.

Everyone in the room withdrew to the walls, the new recruits lined up in single-file against the left one. The first recruit stepped into the center of the room, and three more senior Tong retainers advanced on him from the opposite wall. The three grinned as the new recruit sternly took a fighting stance. He wasn't a bad fighter, but he wasn't that good either. He got some hits in, but three-on-one was more than most people could handle. The fight soon degenerated into a beating, but the recruit did remain standing throughout. The test was more or less designed so that the recruit would pass, but just barely. It was intended to be more about enduring a beating than fighting. Even a pretty good fighter would have trouble with three opponents, but the test showed that the recruit was willing to endure pain at the command of his boss. If anything, that was a more important quality.

One by one, the recruits filed through and the groups of three senior retainers rotated out. Most of the initiates did remain standing, but took some bruises. It was really an ordeal for the bad fighters though. More than a few fell to the ground in a fetal position, unable to stand up again or do anything but endure a series of savage kicks.

Of the Avatar and his companions, Fung entered the floor first. She was one of the few recruits who was actually able to dispatch all three attackers. Using her grappling art, she was able to throw one attacker into another. The third one attacked recklessly. He punched her, but only caught the bony part of her head. His defense was so poor he didn't even see it coming when Fung tripped him and flipped him over.

Two more people went, and then Zhengyi was next. He strolled into the ring as casually as if he were getting out of bed. Sing was not using benders in the test. It took Zhengyi under thirty seconds to take out the three fighters. He waved his hands a few times and three rocks slammed the attackers to the ground. Sing hopped out of his chair, amazed at his luck, that a bender of such ability should join his clan. He already began to realize that with a bender like that on his side he might finally be able to beat back the Ban clan. Momentarily, he restrained himself and sat back in his chair, but Zhengyi noticed his excited reaction and smiled to himself.

Su's turn was a different story. She knew how to fight, certainly, but she couldn't take on three young people. Now she realized she probably would not pass the test, but had forgotten to factor this into her plan. She stepped onto the floor as her opponents did the same. She blocked the first punch and struck back lightning quick. The man faltered, but stayed up. She blocked a punch from the second attacker, then the third one. Su struck the third one but the first one came back. Anticipating a punch from him, she failed to block a punch from the second one, then took a kick from the third. She couldn't keep up her defense anymore and threw up her hands to block her face. The third opponent tripped Su and she went down. Her opponents were more merciful than some of the others, leaving her be after just a couple of kicks for good measure.

Fung took a step to help her, but Zhengyi placed an arm out to block her way. He didn't like seeing Su get hurt, but he knew how clans worked. Helping Su could mean serious trouble. Fung looked at him, then reluctantly stepped back against the wall.

Su stayed still for a moment. She certainly wouldn't be going with the smuggling caravans now, which might complicate her plans. On top of that, she could feel her ear starting to swell up on her. Slowly, she got up so the next person could take the floor.


	10. Chapter 3, Part 2

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 3: The Game

Part 2

Shuurai held up the slip of paper with the address scrawled on it, then glanced up at the palatial compound in front of her. The men who had contacted her told her this place was farm, but anyone could tell it was much too richly appointed to be a farm. But they also told her they could pay ten times what the Ba Sing Se military paid her, and a mercenary always went where the money was.

She entered the main building of the "farm". A retainer showed her to the main dining room and she strode in confidently. The room was ringed with Hei Chaoliu retainers, who looked at her suspiciously and kept their hands near their knives.

A man with an eye-patch rose from a large chair at the head of the room. "What do you want?" Shuurai said, in no mood for games.

"I heard you're a pretty good firebender," the man said, picking up an apple from a bowl next to the chair. "Show me."

Some of the retainers now pushed about five frightened-looking men into the center of the room. An equal number of knives were haphazardly tossed before the men. Tentatively, these men picked up the knives. Shuurai also noticed the men were glancing around at the others who ringed the room. They were being made to be her victims, she reasoned. They must have run afoul of the clan. But she detected no differences in their appearances or bearings from those of the other clan members. _Probably traitors then_, she thought. It didn't matter a whit to her either way.

In a flash she pulled up her sleeve, showing a concealed manriki wound around her arm. Before the fighters could get close, Shuurai became a dervish of blue flame and screaming metal. Her technique was to firebend and swing her chain to keep opponents at a distance, entangle them in her chain, then deliver her special coup-de-gras.

The Ban members were forced back. The manriki caught one in the face, leaving a gash. He fell to his knees, screaming. The others dropped their guard momentarily and Shuurai seized the opportunity, blasting a blue fireball at one and wrapping her manriki around another. A fourth fighter got close enough to swipe at her with his kukri, but she threw up her free arm to block. He struck low and she blocked again, this time striking back with a fireball to his ribs. Another attacker rushed at her, screaming. She took two steps to the left and clotheslined the fighter on her manriki.

But one man was still left standing, wrapped in her weapon. Her right foot slid out a bit. She began making a circular motion with her arm. A grin spread across Wu's face as sparks gathered at her fingertips. Right at the moment that she had to release the lightning, she grasped the chain. Blue electricity sped down its length and wrapped around the hapless Ban fighter just as the manriki itself did. The fighter convulsed violently for several seconds, and finally fell to the ground. Smoke curled off his unconscious body. Shuurai pushed him with her foot, rolling him out of her chain. With a flick of her wrist she wrapped the manriki fully around her arm again and pulled her sleeve back down. She lifted her hands and looked at Wu, her amber eyes glinting. "Satisfied?" she asked.

"I'm a businessman. I always check the merchandise before I buy," Wu said, chewing his apple. His tone became congratulatory. "But you did good," he said, "so I've got a job for you."

"Your men said you would pay me ten times what the army does. I want a written guarantee," Shuurai said.

"Of course," Wu smiled. He turned away from her, taking another bite of his apple as he started to muse. "I think mercenaries are really my favorite people. All they ask for is money, and if there's one thing I have more than enough of, it's money. Just a few hundred gold pieces and a merc will do anything you tell him…"

Shuurai was starting to rankle at Wu's tone. "What's the job?" she barked.

"I want you to track someone down for me. A certain specific earthbender..."

* * *

Ying Su scooped the leek choppings she had just cut on the flat of her knife and scooped them into a pot of broth. _Of all the luck_, she thought. _I get away from Wu only to become a cook for another bunch of thugs_. She adjusted the sack of ice that had been bound against her swollen ear. Su knew it would be much harder to get Tong Suei Sing to let her into a smuggling group now. Fung and Zhengyi had been separated from her, given an assignment out on the streets that would demand their fighting skills, though they had been hurried away to this first assignment and Su didn't know what their exact orders had been. She didn't know whether they'd gone with the smugglers or not. She'd have to find out when they came back to the gambling house…if they came back. Su knew how dangerous the gang lifestyle could be.

"Hey, new meat! Order up!" A large man with a scar called, bustling past Su with a large pot in his hands. That was her new supervisor.

Su picked up the pace of her vegetable chopping. Working in the kitchen of the gambling house was more like working in a large restaurant than as a private chef. The Tong gambling house was not just a gang headquarters, but also a fully-staffed casino and the main source of the clan's income. There were several other chefs, and they were expected to serve not just clan members, but all casino patrons.

Su needed to correct her plan. She had to find out about Zhengyi, Fung, the smugglers, and the passport. She continued chopping vegetables, looking furtively around the room for any possible source of information. There were a few other chefs around, but they all looked very gruff and tight-lipped.

Then she noticed a boy. His overall look was timid and mousy. He was about Zhengyi's age, scrawny, with big eyes. He wore a dark brown sleeveless _kùzhé_ over an off-white _yī_. The sleeves of the _yī_ were a little too long and dangled comically past his knuckles. A yellow ochre headband was wrapped around his hairline, lifting his bangs into twin curtains hanging above his eyes. The rest was pulled into a typical Earth Kingdom-style bun at the crown. He also had a small tassel of paper in either nostril. They were reddened, demonstrating that he had probably recently had a bloody nose. There was also a slight bruise on his cheekbone. A small drum hung over his shoulder by a cord. He was playing with a set of gambling tiles very intently on a counter a little way down from Su. He would turn two over, mumble something, turn another two over, and mumble again.

"Excuse me," Su said. It took a moment for the boy to look up at her.

"Huh? What?" he asked. Su thought maybe he sounded a little scared.

"Are you in the clan?" Su asked him, politely as anything.

"Oh, umm…" he said, as he broke eye contact in thought. "Well, not really. My dad works for them. I hang out around here while he works, but I'm not formally sworn in or anything."

"Oh. And who's your dad?"

"Heung Sai."

"What does he do?"

"Clan bookkeeper."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Su said, laughing a little. "I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Ying Su." She bowed.

"Heung Chu." He returned the gesture.

"Heung Chu, do you know anything about how the clan works?" she asked.

"Maybe…well, not much…I don't know. What do you want to know?"

"My kids and I were sworn in today. I didn't pass the combat test, but they did, and I don't know what they were assigned to do? Do you have any idea?"

"Oh…well kind of, but…it could be a lot of things. Suei Sing has a lot of guys out collecting gambling debts. They could be muscle for one of our loan sharks, or for one of our guys who runs the numbers games. Or they could be fighting to capture dai zhiwu from another clan…" He trailed off.

"Oh. I see. Thank you," Su said sadly. She hoped the kids would be okay, but could do nothing but go back to cutting vegetables.

Heung Chu stared at her for a minute. His awkward stare was appropriate to the sudden silence. "Uh, I'm sorry," he said quickly, and went back to shuffling his gambling tiles.

There was a pause as each of them went back to their respective activities. But Su kept hearing the _clack, clack, clack_ of the boy's lacquered tiles, and she realized she should ask about another piece of information that might come in handy. "Um, Chu," she asked, "what's this domino game everyone plays around here?"

"Do you mean bing jiu? Don't you know how to play bing jiu?" Chu was genuinely surprised someone hadn't heard of it.

"No, but I love games. And I should probably learn it if I'm going to work in a gambling house. Can you teach me how to play?"

Chu's face lit up. "Sure, I'll teach you! I love games too. Do you play pai sho?"

"Pai sho's my favorite," Su replied.

"Oh, cool," Chu said. "Maybe you can give me some tips for that…Anyway, bing jiu, right," he said, focusing his mind again. "It's super-easy. If you can count you can play it." He shuffled his tiles to demonstrate a game.

"Each player and the dealer get four tiles to make two hands with. Each hand has two tiles." He dealt four tiles to her and four to himself. "The object is to get the highest score your by combining the tiles in the best way. In most cases the score is the total of the pips on your tiles, but you drop the tens digit. Go ahead, show yours," he told her. Su complied. "See, you got a 5-5 and a 4-6. The total is twenty, but you drop the tens place so your actual score is zero. I have a 1-3 and a 2-3, that's nine, and there's no tens place so my score is also nine. Nine's usually the highest you can get." It was a good thing the game was so simple, or else Su wouldn't have been able to keep up for the speed at which the boy talked. He sounded so excited.

"So I win that hand," Chu continued, "but the to win the bet you need to win both hands. If I win one but lose the next then I only get back the money I bet. And of course if I lose both I lose the pot. Now, the strategy comes into play in determining which distribution of tiles between the two hands," he continued, gathering the tiles into another pile as he spoke and dealing them once again, "is going to give you the best odds of winning both bets. See, here I have a 2-2, a 1-5, a 5-6, and a 4-5. Every set of four tiles can be combined three ways to make two hands," he said, speaking faster and faster as he became absorbed by the calculations. "Put the 2-2 with the 1-5 that's 10 and 20 both score0putthe2-2withthe5-6that's15and15bothscore5putthe2-2withthe4-5that's—"

"Woah! Slow down!" Su exclaimed. Again, it took a moment for the boy to look at her, as though his brain were waiting to come to a full stop before changing gears.

"Oh, sorry," he finally said, smiling apologetically.

Su was amazed. "How can you even count that fast?" she asked.

Chu shrugged dismissively. "I'm kinda good with numbers. I guess I get it from my dad. Whatever." His tone shifted back to excitement. "Anyway, nine's not always the highest score you can get. Let me tell you about pairs and the special tiles…"

* * *

"Stick wit' me, guys," Tsi told Zhengyi and Fung as they edged past pedestrians on the busy streets of Ba Sing Se. "I like ta take care a' the new guys. I'm tryin' ta make the clan life more invitin', ya know, get more recruits. I'll make sure you don' get killed or nothin'," he laughed.

"Umm…thanks," Fung said. She saw Zhengyi sidestep a barrel in her periphery. "Where are we going anyway?" Back at the casino, the only orders that she and Zhengyi had received were that they were going to work in a ten-person crew under a mid-level lieutenant named Guxi, which happened to be Tsi's crew.

"We're collectin' debt," Tsi answered. "Guxi's got a whole list a' guys who made the mistake a' tryin' ta stiff the Tong clan. We're gonna pay each of 'em a visit."

"Uh, cool, cool," Fung said casually, though she was very apprehensive on the inside. Zhengyi was glad to overhear that news. He had done this kind of work before.

Fu Shan looked up, seeming to regard Tsi, but soon settled back into his resting place across Zhengyi's shoulders.

Then the group stopped. Zhengyi looked to Guxi. Guxi wore a green bandanna tied over his head. He looked tough, with a commanding air about him. Zhengyi guessed he might be ex-military, which was becoming a more and more common backstory among Hei Chaoliu members. Guxi was looking at another man and threw up a hand sign, a type of Tong clan greeting. Zhengyi recognized it, having learned it from the Ban clan spies in order to identify Tong members. The two men then began talking in hushed tones.

"What are they doing?" Fung asked Tsi, stepping forward.

"Dunno," he replied.

Suddenly Guxi motioned Tsi over. Tsi looked at Fung, then obliged his superior. Guxi placed a hand on his shoulder and said just a few words to him, but Tsi exploded. Tsi smacked Guxi's hand off his shoulder and started swearing loudly and stumbling almost manically. It was like a mental breakdown had hit him out of nowhere. Civilians hurrying past on the busy street stopped to stare, but none of the Tongs seemed to pay them any mind. "Who did it?" Zhengyi heard Tsi scream. Then Guxi said something else and Tsi began screaming and ranting curses again. He ran his hands over his head and through his hair over and over. Guxi tried to lay a hand on him again, but Tsi pulled away violently. Some men who had come with the other Tong restrained him. As Tsi struggled, Guxi grabbed his head and said a few more things to him. After a few more moments Tsi seemed to calm down. Guxi said something else to the other Tong and Tsi went away with him.

"All right, fall in!" Guxi called. "Tsi's goin' back to H.Q.! The rest of us got a schedule to keep, so let's go!" There were a few murmurs, but the group immediately resumed walking through the busy market streets. As they walked Fung hurried up a bit so she could talk to Guxi. "Hey, uh, _dà gē_," Fung asked Guxi, calling him as Hei Chaoliu subordinates were supposed to call their superiors, "what happened with Tsi?"

"Not your business," Guxi responded, without even looking at her. "Don't poke your nose where it don't belong, new meat." Fung paused. She fell behind until she found herself walking next to Zhengyi.

They walked for a while more, mostly in silence. Fung didn't want to talk to Zhengyi after the way he had acted the day before. Guxi brought the group to a halt in front of a dai zhiwu den. "All right boys, we're lookin' for a guy named Lang. He's from the Lui clan, so he's got a wolf-bat tattoo on his chest, and the back of his left hand's all scarred up. He's supposed to have a long ponytail and a goatee. Spread out, find 'im, make 'im pay up." They all popped their golok knives out of their sheathes and entered the den. Zhengyi and Fung followed suit. The clan had issued them goloks as well, at a nominal cost to be deducted from their earnings.

This dai zhiwu den was no different than the hundreds of others throughout the city, except perhaps for the fact that it had more tables and a better selection of alcohol than most. Almost immediately Guxi found this Lang person at one of tables. He was having a casual drink with a few other Lui clan members. Apparently he hadn't known anyone was after him.

"Yo, Lang!" Guxi barked, approaching him. Lang barely had time to look up before Guxi grabbed his hair and slammed his face into the table. The goons on either side of him, as well as several other people in the place, suddenly stood up. Without releasing Lang, Guxi moved his foot and tripped one of the goons with a block of earth.

_So he's a bender_, Zhengyi thought as Fu Shan hopped from his shoulders to the ground, in anticipation of a fight.

"I'm from the Tong clan, Lang. You borrowed quite a bit of money from us. You got it yet?" Guxi asked angrily, grinding Lang's face into the table even harder.

"Yeah, I got it," Lang said. "I got yer money right HERE!" With that, he stamped his foot and the earth under the table rose up and smashed it on to Guxi. Other Tongs scrambled out of the way. The Lui members—which were most of the people in the place, it turned out—immediately took out their meteor hammers. The place exploded in fighting. Meteor hammers wrapped around goloks. Swinging goloks forced fighters back. Punches to the jaw. Kicks to the chest. Zhengyi and Fung were too far back to get into the action. The den was not very large and the other Tongs boxed them out. But that soon changed when either Lang or Guxi blasted a boulder through the wall.

The bustling street outside came to a halt. Civilians gawked or ran for cover as Guxi and Lang rolled out of the hole, grappling with each other. Lang kicked Guxi off him with both feet as they somersaulted backwards. Guxi landed a few feet away, but kipped up into a fighting stance. Fung, Zhengyi, and the other fighters flooded out of the hole and the doorway just in time to see Guxi and Lang face off. Guxi wiped some blood from his lip and brandished his cleaver. "C'mon! C'mon!" he goaded Lang, gesturing him in with his fingers. "Let's go, you jelly-boned wimp!

As Lang rushed at Guxi, the collections of Tong and Lui fighters followed suit. Unfamiliar with his new weapon, Zhengyi threw it back into the holster and instead bent a rock at an oncoming attacker. The attacker had been smoking dai zhiwu in the den just minutes before, and was too high to be any help in a fight, as were several of the Lui members. He barely lifted his eyelids as the rock caught him in the stomach.

Zhengyi was in his element now. Fighting was what he had been raised to do since he could walk, and with his fight with Wu only a few days past, he was as eager as ever to hurt someone. _These guys picked the wrong day to mess with me_, he thought. He began raising boulders and crags left and right. It was a bit of a challenge, since the sober Lui members were pretty quick, and the meteor hammer was perfectly suited to smash incoming rocks. Still, he handily tripped them up with outcroppings or flipped them into the air with bulges of earth. He spun and flung out his fist, smashing a rock into someone's side, then stepped forward and struck with two crane's-beak hands, hitting a Lui in the legs and then striking him with another crag before he had hit the ground. With every blow he imagined Wu's face. He thought of how he had been deceived since he was born, how everything he had been told had been a lie, how it had all been constructed by Wu to suit his master plan. And he remembered how it had been he, Zhengyi, who had made the plan succeed. And each of the Avatar's blows became successively harder.

On the other hand, Fung was doing her best not to hurt anyone. She noticed that several of the combatants were high on plant, so she easily flipped them over her shoulder on to the ground. Better to be knocked unconscious, she reasoned, than have a golok embedded in your side.

Suddenly she felt a tremor under her feet. She looked over and saw Zhengyi, in a massive display of power, lifting a slab of rock several yards square in area. He was in the process of pulling it out of the ground, about to drop it on fifteen Lui fighters. Fung gasped, immediately moving to stop him. Zhengyi's whole body strained under the weight and effort of bending that much earth, but it was a strangely delicious sensation for him. To him the pain in his body seemed a manifestation of his anger, bursting out as horrifically as it felt inside.

Some onlookers actually had to scramble off the slab as it was yanked from under their feet. Zhengyi brought it several feet off the ground. All he had to do was lurch forward and it would go crashing into the Lui members. He shifted his weight. His arms tensed in anticipation.

He was about to throw it, but suddenly his arm was pulled out from over his head. A leg snaked inside his and turned him around, bringing him face to face with its owner, Fung. The slab crashed back into the ground, loudly but harmlessly. Fung held his wrist fast.

"What are you doing?" she yelled above the din.

"Let go!" Zhengyi cried, trying to wrench his wrist away with brute force. He knew how to break wrist holds, but he wasn't thinking clearly right now.

"Why are you so intent on hurting people?" She wasn't crying, but her voice cracked with sadness. "Stop acting this way!"

"Get off!" Zhengyi screamed, raising a small block of earth to make her stumble. Fung fell over and Zhengyi backed away a few paces. Things became quieter as they stared at each other for several moments. The silence was almost complete when they heard Lang scream.

They both looked over just in time to see Lang turn and run off, following the other Lui fighters. "Pay up, or I'm comin' for the fourth finger tomorrow!" Guxi goaded him. He turned to his own fighters, gingerly probing a new black eye with his pinky. "We lose anybody?" Guxi asked. He seemed to look at them a moment, perhaps taking a head count. "No? Good. Then we got a schedule to keep. Let's go!" And off the Tong fighters walked. There were no congratulations, victory celebrations, medical examinations, splints, or casts. Fights like that were an everyday occurrence in the Hei Chaoliu. The nine fighters just holstered their cleavers and headed off to put in more work. Zhengyi and Fung walked silently in the back.

* * *

Zhengyi and Fung returned to the Tong gambling house with the rest of their unit that evening. Guxi gave them their cut of the money they had made that day. It wasn't much, but it was more than either of them had earned on their own before.

Su and the kids were still staying in the alley, but the gambling house had food drink, and they needed a dinner after the day they had just had. They also had to meet back up with Su. Fu Shan, catching her scent, hopped off of Zhengyi's shoulders and ran ahead to her. They looked around until they found her in the kitchen, kneading dough. She was moving and sort of bobbing her head in time to a beat, which came from the drum of a boy playing nearby on a counter. The sound couldn't be heard too far away in the bustling kitchen, but as the kids got close they could hear it. When Su saw them she ran over to greet them, and the boy stopped playing and hopped off the counter. "Zhengyi! Fung! Are you okay?" she asked, hugging them. "What did they have you doing?"

"We were support for a loan shark. Mostly we had to collect people's gambling debts," Fung explained. "We got in a few fights, but we're okay."

"Who's this guy?" Zhengyi asked of the strange boy.

The boy bowed to him in greeting. "Hi, I'm…uh…my name's Heung Chu."

Zhengyi looked at him for a moment, and did not return the bow. He might have intended to, but Su interrupted. "This is my friend Chu. He told me a little about the clan and taught me to play this bing jiu thing everyone plays. He knows just about every game you can think of." Ying Su was trying to hype him up to Fung and Zhengyi, but she did it in that embarrassing way usually reserved for aunts and grandmothers.

Chu almost blushed. "Well," he mumbled "I live in a gambling house, so…"

There was a moment of silence. "Sorry, but is dinner ready, Su?" Fung said. "I'm hungry."

"Sure, dear. Go find a seat outside and I'll bring you some."

"See ya, Chu," Fung said, walking out of the kitchen to find a table in the dining area of the main hall of the gambling parlor. Zhengyi followed wordlessly.

"Oh…see ya," Chu replied. He sat back on the counter and began tapping slowly on his drum.

Su picked up three bowls of hot-and-sour soup she had made and brought them to the kids. She returned to the kitchen for a plate of dumplings and found Chu still sitting there, playing his drum. Su had assumed he would go to eat dinner with his father, but maybe she had been wrong. Su brought the food to the kids and returned once more to the kitchen to pick up the main course, rooster-pork and noodles. But Chu was still sitting there. He looked so lonely Su couldn't ignore him again. "Chu, aren't you going to eat dinner with your father?"

"Oh, well, uh…see, I usually don't have dinner with him," Chu explained.

"Why's that?" Su asked with concern in her voice.

"He's, uh, doing something else right now," Chu said. He walked over to the kitchen door and peered outside. The tone of voice was very casual, as though he didn't mind at all, but Su could tell that his father's behavior made Chu feel abandoned. "Yeah, I can see him from here. He unwinds everyday after work by gambling. I mean, I don't really care. I can feed myself." He resumed tapping his drum. "No big deal."

"I see." Su thought for a moment, then said "Well, if you have nowhere else to be anyway, would you like to eat with us tonight?"

"Oh, um…s-sure, I guess." They both went over to the table and Chu took a seat.

"Change of plans," Su told the others. "Chu's going to be eating with us tonight. Is that okay?"

"Sure," Fung said. Zhengyi just looked up from his soup and made a sort of shrug.

"Great," Su said. She took her seat and they all began eating.

Fung noticed the small bruise on Chu's cheekbone, but thought it would be rude to ask about it. "So, what kind of games do they play in this place, Chu?" she asked instead.

"Oh, lots," he answered, chewing a dumpling. "Bing Jiu, Fox Dice, Tai Sai, Odd-Even, Kap Tai Shap…"

"You really know all those games?" Fung asked.

"Sure. I have my own set of tiles. The hard thing is finding people to play with, not learning the rules. I mean, I know a ton of other games too, games you don't bet on: Pai Sho, Slant Nail, Weiqi, Pig's Tail—"

Fung snickered a little. "Pig's Tail? I used to play that at the abbey—" she trailed off as she noticed Ying Su staring at her and trying to make an "X" gesture as subtly as she could. Fung had forgotten they were using a cover story! She quickly tried to recover. "—abbeeeean farm. A bean farm, yeah…where, uh, my uncle lives." She flashed a sheepish smile.

Chu looked at the girl, not knowing what to make of her behavior.

"But why do you play Pig's Tail?" Fung asked. "That's a kid's game; I haven't played that since I was, like, twelve."

"So?" Chu smiled. "That doesn't make it not-fun. I mean…if you want, we could play it after dinner. I got a deck of cards right here," he said, producing them from a pocket inside his _kùzhé_.

Fung and Chu went on discussing games they used to play as kids. Ying Su joined in the conversation, and there were many laughs to be had. But Zhengyi just brooded silently as he ate. He was done with stupid kid's stuff like games. He was done with innocence. He wanted to kill One-Eyed Wu, and nothing else. In order to do that he prepared his mind to throw away his last shreds of childhood innocence. A few days ago he had refused to kill that Tong member at the warehouse, but today he had been prepared to kill those Lui. He told himself he was now prepared to take life. His childhood in the Black Current had taught him a point that Wu's betrayal had driven home: the world was full of killers, as many human predators as animal ones, and the only way to survive was to kill the other guy before he killed you. That was natural, after all, so why should Fung or anyone else care what he did? He had already resolved to kill Wu, and he knew in his heart he would. He was sure he had already shed his inhibitions about killing, so what did it matter if or when he acted on the absence of those inhibitions? Fu Shan sat under the table flicking his tail, and Zhengyi fed him a piece of rooster pork off of his chopstick as he reflected on his thoughts.

Just then, Tsi and Guxi walked by Zhengyi's table. Tsi was speaking very harshly in low tones, and Guxi seemed to be trying to comfort him. Just as they walked past Zhengyi, Tsi said, "The next Ban I see, I'm 'onna cut his tattoo off, man."

Zhengyi took notice of the word "Ban." He jumped up and walked hurriedly after the two men. "Where's he going?" Chu asked.

"Eh, ignore him," Fung replied, swallowing. "He's always got some issue."

Zhengyi tailed Guxi and Tsi nonchalantly for a few moments. "I'm 'onna cut it off slowly," Tsi was ranting through clenched teeth, "with a dull knife."

"Yeah," Guxi agreed, "and when we catch him I'll hold him down for ya. And that's a promise from a brother," he said, invoking the Hei Chaoliu "second family" principles. Then the two embraced, but in a decidedly tough, masculine way, thumping each other on the back to complete it.

Zhengyi walked over as they sat down at a vacant table. "Yo, Tsi, what happened, man?" he asked, trying to make his concern over what Tsi had said about the Ban clan sound like concern for Tsi himself. "I haven't seen you since this morning. Where you been?"

"The clan…" Tsi was somewhat choked up, masking his grief with anger. "The clan had this dai zhiwu warehouse up past the East Market, and the guys guardin' it didn't report in yesterday…"

_The warehouse I helped Wu attack two days ago_, Zhengyi thought.

"They didn't report in to the Mountain Master," Guxi jumped in, speaking for Tsi, "so he sent some guys to check it out. They found everybody dead. Tsi's brother Kang had been dragged off from the warehouse. They found lying in a pool of water with slashes over his whole body. That's how we knew it was the Ban: the only guy in the city with that M.O. is One-Eyed Wu's psycho lapdog Aguta." Aguta's favorite waterbending technique was to create a sort of claw made of razor-sharp ice around his hand, or otherwise use knives of ice to lacerate his victims. "Have you heard of that guy?" Guxi asked.

_Dragged off…_Zhengyi thought. His mind flashed back to that day, to the lone Tong member who had identified him as the Avatar. _Could that guy…? He must have been Tsi's brother! _Now that he thought about it, that man did look somewhat like Tsi.

Zhengyi remembered how he had implored him for help: "_Avatar, help me! He's going to kill me!_"

"Hey!" Guxi called, snapping Zhengyi out of his trance. "I asked if you ever heard of Aguta."

"Oh, uh, yeah…I'm familiar," Zhengyi said. He looked as Tsi stewed in his rage.

Guxi called Aguta a pejorative term for Water Tribe people, modified by the word "psycho." Then he pinched the behind of a passing female clan servant who was working as a waitress. "Two _èrguōtóu_, honey," he ordered. "Leave the bottle." She hurried away.

"By 'brother,' you mean his brother by blood?" Zhengyi asked, just to make sure.

"Biological brother, yeah," Guxi answered. That explained why Tsi was so distraught by this. They weren't talking about just any clan "brother."

"Tsi, I…" Zhengyi started to say. He could only stare into the grief-stricken man's eyes, searching for what to say. Deep down, a small voice cried out for him to confess everything, but Zhengyi remembered his cover. All he could do was breathe "…I'm sorry." He was struck by the irony of those words. "I'm real sorry."

"Hey, it ain't your fault," Tsi sighed.

"Yeah…Well I gotta finish dinner, so…" Zhengyi awkwardly excused himself. "See ya."

"See ya, kid," Tsi replied, taking a shot of the delivered liquor.

When Zhengyi returned to his plate he found the others in the middle of a game of Pig's Tail. He watched as they laughed and goofed around, moving cards in and out of the circle formed of cards, Chu and Fung laughing because they bumped heads when they both reached into the circle at the same time, Chu jokingly trying to shove his cards under Fung's so his hand would not be on top, as the object of the game went. Fortunately for Chu, Pig's Tail involved very little math or probability. If they had been playing bing jiu or odd-even he would have probably won so quickly and completely it would have been offputting to new friends, and Chu usually got so engrossed in games he was unable to purposely refrain from winning. But as it was, they had a great time playing the children's game.

Zhengyi looked on, almost becoming angry at the frivolity of games like that when people like he and Tsi had to live such hard lives.

At one point as he watched though, Zhengyi noticed Chu's bruise. He rudely interrupted Chu in the middle of a play. "Yo, Chu," he said. Fung gave Zhengyi a cross look, but Chu just looked up attentively. "Where'd you get this?" he asked, pointing to the place on his own face where Chu's bruise was.

"Oh, uh, I got in a fight," Chu said. "You know, Hei Chaoliu. It happens. 'Outlaw's life' and all that stuff," he smiled.

Zhengyi nodded. The others went back to their game.

* * *

**A/N:** _Hi everyone. I hope you're enjoying Avatar Zhengyi's adventures!_

_I haven't left may author's notes or anything, so I just wanted to check in here. Out of curiosity, I wanted to know if anyone had any questions about anything in the story. For example, I throw in non-English terms sometimes, as well as certain references to real-world things. I wanted to know if anyone would like to see maybe a glossary or other sort of notes at the end of each part. Some of you may know I'm also posting this story simultaneously at the Avatar Wiki. Because of it's nature as a wiki, that site allows me to have bonus content over there, like pages for characters and other things that appear in the story (the Hei Chaoliu has a page, for example). If you've read the story this far you'll probably be interested in those. There's also a Q&A and an updates page over there, if you would like to avail yourself of them. Of course, you can also talk to me through the review system or message me through this site. Let me know if you're interested in those, and any other "extras" you might want to see that I can't think of. Thanks for reading!_


	11. Chapter 3, Part 3

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 3: The Game

Part 3

"This don't look like a doctor's office," Aguta said as he and Lucky Cho entered a run-down row house with several separate living units above it. It had a hanging sign that said simply, "Acupuncture."

"Wait 'til you see the doctor," Wu grinned. He entered the place, knocking on the door frame. "Knock, knock, Dr. Teng," he called playfully.

Lucky Cho looked around the room, noticing several jars of acupunture needles and grim-looking surgical instruments. Soon a man emerged from the back room, toweling something off his hands. He looked to be in his fifties. He was bald on top, but had long gray hair on the back and sides. He wore glasses and a black bandana covering his nose and mouth, presumably for sanitary reasons. He was clothed in a white _zhíshēn_.

"It's your old chi blocking student," Wu said of himself, grinning at Dr. Teng. Teng remained motionless. His mouth was covered by the bandana and his eyes could not be discerned through the glare on his glasses. Wu's tone quickly became lighter. "Dr. Teng, I have a little job for you, if you're interested." Wu removed a sack from a pocket of his _zhàoshān_. "A hundred thousand gold pieces to find one kid. Sound good to you?"

Dr. Teng only crossed his arms.

"Okay," Wu admitted, "the catch is, the kid's the Avatar. But that's why I came to you. You're the best chi strike master in the city. He may be the Avatar, but all he has is bending. You can take it away. If anyone can get him, it's you."

Everyone was silent for a moment. Then Dr. Teng held out his hand.

"Oh, an advance?" Wu said. "You're a smart man. I like that. Be at the Ban compound at sunrise tomorrow and you'll get the money."

As they left, Cho, who was thoroughly creeped-out by the doctor, asked Wu, "Hey, why doesn't that guy talk?"

Wu grinned, laughing a bit. "Because he doesn't have a tongue anymore."

* * *

The next day passed in the same way: Su worked in the kitchen, Fung and Zhengyi went around collecting money under Guxi, and in the evening they hung out with Chu. He taught bing jiu to Fung and even Zhengyi, who was feeling a little better that day.

They did not see Tsi again.

The day after that, Zhengyi and Fung found themselves gathered around a doorway in the Lower Ring with eight other Tong members, watching as Guxi pounded on the door. Fung casually finished off some dumplings-on-a-stick she had bought, hearing the _tunk, tunk, tunk _of Guxi's fist on the wood. She was getting more and more uncomfortable working with criminals, but she was trying to be optimistic. Since they had only fought fellow criminals and other undesirable types, she had not had much of a problem. In fact, the debtors almost always paid up without the need for any violence.

"Open up!" Guxi called, loudly but flatly. "It's the Tong clan! We're here to collect!" He waited for a short moment. Then he bent a rock into the door.

His men immediately swarmed in. The house had two occupants, a preteen girl and a man in late middle-age. Another Tong restrained the old man. Fung noticed a girl almost run past her as she entered. "Grab her!" Guxi barked. Without thinking, Fung obeyed, holding the girl's arms fast behind her back.

Guxi marched up to the man, cracking his knuckles. "Do you have our money, Mr. Mu?"

"Please," Mu pleaded, "I'm just a carpenter. I don't have the money. I don't have any way to get it."

"Oh, you're breakin' my heart," Guxi mocked him. "If you can't _pay_," he said, punching Mu in the stomach, "don't _gamble_!" He punched him again.

"Daddy!" his daughter screamed, struggling to break out of Fung's grip.

"I'm sorry!" Mu rasped. "We're very poor. I just wanted to make some fast money. Please, leave us alone. Hurting me won't get you your money."

"I'm not hurting you because it'll get me my money," Guxi said. "I'm hurting you because I love my job," he said happily, socking Mu in the jaw. Then he grabbed Mu by it, forcing the man to look at him, his tone turning threatening. "And because you need to learn that _no one_ holds out on the Tong clan."

Guxi threw Mu's head out of his hands like trash. "I realize you don't have the money," Guxi said. He turned and grinned wickedly at Mu's daughter. "…But you do have collateral." He placed his hand under her chin and lifted it up. "We're taking your daughter. She's going to work off your debts until they're paid."

"No! You can't!" Mu begged, almost crying. He struggled to break free from the big man who held him.

"Take her away," Guxi commanded, turning to leave.

"No," Fung breathed. Whether or not Jian Lao had chosen her to aid the Avatar, whether or not they needed that passport, she was sure Jian Lao did not want her to continue compromising her beliefs. She was absolutely not going to sit by and watch a criminal syndicate kidnap and exploit an innocent girl.

Guxi turned to her and paused. "What did you say?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I said 'no'," Fung replied. She stood her ground. "I can't do it. I won't do it!" She looked to the girl she held, and released her. "Get out of here! Run!

"Stop her!" Guxi ordered the rest of his men. The Tong were crowded so thick between the daughter and the doorway that running was just a futile gesture on her part. She was soon grabbed and restrained again.

"No! Xiang!" Mu cried.

But Guxi turned to Fung, not Xiang. "What's wrong with you, girl?" he barked. "Do you not remember the oath you swore to obey your Mountain Master? I have orders from him to kidnap this girl if her father is unable to pay." Guxi got right in Fung's face. "If you disobey, that makes you an oath-breaker. And didn't you swear 'if I should dishonor my Mountain Master, I shall be killed by ten thousand knives'?" Indeed, that was how the Hei Chaoliu initiation oath ran, and Fung _had_ said those words. "You _do_ realize that's not in there just to make the oath sound more poetic, don't you?"

Guxi pulled away from Fung, turning his back to her but continuing to talk. "I'll give you one last chance to prove your loyalty." He turned to another subordinate. "Block the door," he ordered. The subordinate complied and Guxi grabbed Xiang by the arm, yanking her out of the other Tong's grasp. He thrust her toward Fung. "Hold her," he growled.

_Stupid girl_, Zhengyi thought. _Why's she risking our escape on someone she doesn't even know? Just do what he says, Fung._ Zhengyi had to get out of the city and start training after all, didn't he? He had already decided: if she started trouble, he was going to stick by the Tongs.

Fung hesitated, but finally obeyed.

"You will escort her like this all the way back to headquarters," Guxi ordered gravely, "or this clan will consider you an oath-breaker and your life will be forfeit."

Again, Fung hesitated as though in thought. Then she began walking toward the door with the Xiang in her grasp. Guxi smiled.

But as Fung passed the large fighter blocking the door, she placed her foot behind his ankle. Instantaneously, in one motion, Fung shoved the girl out of her grasp and into the street, reached around the fighter's shoulder, and flipped him. "Run!" she called to Xiang. Xiang took off even as the other Tongs rushed Fung.

"Get her! Get them both!" Guxi cried. Fung tried to bottleneck the fighters in the doorway, tripping one on the left, flipping one coming from the right. But they were too many, and they distracted her as Guxi bent the earth around her, trapping her from the neck down in a conical formation of rock before she scarcely realized it.

At that moment, Zhengyi blew past her out of the doorway, in pursuit of Xiang. Several other Tongs followed, but he bent earth around his feet and went gliding after Xiang as though he were ice-skating. He soon caught up to the girl and encased her in a rock formation identical to the one that held Fung.

Zhengyi walked her back down to Mu's house, floating the slab with his bending. "Nice work," Guxi congratulated him.

"Zhengyi, you have to let her go!" Fung pleaded. "How can you do this? Don't you realize what they're doing?"

Zhengyi was silent, but he didn't look particularly sympathetic. Guxi turned to Fung. "Your brother knows where his loyalties are." Fung spat at him, but Guxi dodged it. "Let's go," he ordered the men. They returned to the compound, escorting both girls inside their stone cages.

* * *

As soon as Guxi dismissed him, Zhengyi ran to the kitchen to find Ying Su. "Su! Su!" he panted, "We gotta get outta here. They captured Fung! We have to get outta here before she rats us out!" Fu Shan leapt off of his shoulders and on to the counter.

"What do you mean, 'they captured her'?" Su asked, dropping her knife on the cutting board. "Who captured her?"

"The Tongs," Zhengyi explained, his tone urgent. "We had to take this girl 'cause her dad owed them money, but Fung disobeyed. She tried to help the girl escape. They're keeping her locked up in the abandoned apartment next door. We gotta get outta here before she sells us out, or they'll find out we're Ban clan and kill us too!"

"We need to get that passport, and save Fung!" Su said.

"We can get the passport somewhere else. And it's Fung's own fault she got captured. We don't have time for this! Let's go!"

Zhengyi had to escape the city, train, and come back to kill Wu. Nothing else mattered to him, particularly not a goody-two-shoes nun who would rather get killed than keep her pet morality to herself.

"No," Su said. "We have to save her. Fung has done nothing but help you since you met her, and she gave up a lot to travel with us."

"I thought you said we couldn't be prevented from killing Wu!"

"Fung is the daughter of your father's best friend—his real best friend," Su scolded. "Think about what your father would want. Do you really think letting her die is the proper way to honor him?"

Zhengyi tried to sputter a protest, but he realized Su was right.

"Fung saved us at the abbey, she helped us escape Wu, she joined a Black Current clan that forced her to do things she clearly didn't agree with just so she could have a _chance_ of helping you get out of the city…"

Zhengyi paused. Images came flooding back to him. He remembered the nuns fighting armed gangsters so that he could escape. He remembered how Fung had come to his room in the abbey. He was injured, as vulnerable as he had ever been in his life, and she helped him. He remembered her leading him away from the fighting, and how much he wanted to run into the fray, charge back to the compound and kill Wu. But Fung had persuaded him against it. He had since realized that he would have been killed if he tried to take on the whole Ban clan in that condition. Fung had really saved his life, hadn't she… And then he remembered more: the lumps Fung took during the Tong initiation ceremony, how she fought beside him against the Lui clan.

"She's brave and self-sacrificing. Those are good qualities for an ally," Su continued. "Avatar or not, you need people to help you. Two heads are always better than one, and Fung has knowledge and skills that you don't have. You're much more likely to be successful if we take her with us."

But Zhegyi was still remembering. He remembered the hand on his arm, as he was about to hurl a slab of earth onto the Lui fighters that day. Fung was always trying to change him, but… _Tsi_, he thought. _And his brother. _He couldn't shake them from his mind, no matter how much he told himself he wanted to. Would it have been the same with the Lui members?

Zhengyi was silent that whole time as he thought. "All right," he said finally. "Let's go bust her out."

"Bust who out?" came a voice. Zhengyi and Fung turned to see Heung Chu. "That girl Fung? Did she get captured?" The concern rose in his voice. Zhengyi and Su hesitated. They didn't know whether they could trust him, since his father worked for the Tong clan. But Chu realized what they were thinking. "Don't worry," he said, "just between us, I hate this clan."

_He could be lying_, Su thought, _but he already knows what we're planning anyway…_ "Chu, we're your friends, right? If I tell you our plan, will you come with us and help us?"

Chu was, in fact, telling the truth. Even though he'd only known them a few days, Chu was much more inclined to help them than the clan. He was beaten up by the aggressive other retainers almost everyday, and his father was too busy gambling and sucking up to Tong Suei Sing to notice. But helping traitors would mean his life, and probably his father's too. Even if Heung Sai was neglectful, he didn't deserve to die, and Chu wasn't the type to be brave in these situations anyway.

"Uh, well," Chu mumbled, "I don't think that's a good idea really. I mean, I can't do anything to help. I can't fight. Like, not at all."

"That's okay," Su said. She didn't actually care what Chu did, she just needed to keep him close until they got Fung out, so she could make sure he didn't run off and warn the guards or bring reinforcements. "You can still help us," she lied. "Just stay behind us and stay hidden. Please, Chu. We need all the help we can get."

Chu murmured uncomfortably, flicking his fingers in indecision. He did want to help them…Well, he assumed they'd be trying to _sneak_ into the place. Maybe he _could_ stay hidden, and no Tong people would see him. "Ahhhhh…okay," he agreed finally.

"Thank you, Chu," Su said. She turned to Zhengyi. "Now, Zhengyi, you saw where they took her?" He nodded. "Take us there."

Zhengyi led them out the back of the gambling house to an apartment building next door. The clan used it as a makeshift boarding house and prison. One-Eyed Wu had kept a few buildings elsewhere in the city for the same purpose. It was a dark night, but Ba Sing Se was a densely populated, very built-up city, and as always, several lanterns and torches scattered around the street were throwing light.

As they approached the building, Zhengyi saw two guards at the entrance. He stopped to let Fu Shan off of his shoulders, then bent a rock several yards down the street, hoping to distract them with the noise. It leapt into the air and thudded loudly to the ground. The guards stepped over to investigate and Zhengyi, Su, Fu Shan, and Chu quickly stole into the building.

"What are we going to do now?" Zhengyi asked. "Check every room?"

"If I remember, they use the top floor to hold prisoners. The rest of the building is a boarding house for clan members," Chu informed them. "I don't think they mix prisoners and regular members on the same floor. But…but there might be more guards."

"We can handle it. Let's try there first," Su said, already climbing the stairs. Fu Shan chased after her. They all ran to the top floor, only to round a corner and come face to face with another guard. Chu, the last in line, stayed on the landing below that floor. He saw Su and Zhengyi enter the corridor, but was unwilling to risk being seen by a guard.

Indeed there were an additional two guards for the prison level. "Stop!" one of them barked. "This floor is off-limits. What are you doing here?"

"I'm, uh, delivering a prisoner," Su said, grabbing Zhengyi by the shoulders.

"He's a prisoner?" the guard said skeptically. "Isn't he the new earthbending prodigy who joined the clan a few days ago? Zhengyi, right?" He turned to Su. "And you're the new cook, aren't you? You're not qualified to transport captives."

"Oh, but he just disobeyed an order today," Su lied.

"Ha," the guard laughed. "I doubt it. There are only six people in the clan who can designate a prisoner, and I don't admit anyone to prison unless I'm personally informed by one of them." Both guards drew their goloks. "But you're both prisoners now," the one said.

Zhengyi punched one guard in the face as Su kicked the other in the knee. She quickly twisted his arm, forcing him to drop his weapon, and put him in a hold. The other guard swung at Zhengyi, but he dodged and kicked him in the ribs, then delivered a sharp uppercut. As that guard went down, Su swung the one she held into the wall.

"We _would_ get the one guard who's actually intelligent and good at his job," Zhengyi said, looking at the unconscious bodies.

"Not that good," Su quipped. "We'd better hurry. Someone downstairs must have heard that."

They heard banging coming from two of the doors. Fung and that girl Xiang had heard the fight, and were letting the others know where they were. Zhengyi picked up the guard's keys and flung open a door. Fung was right there. "Let's go," Zhengyi said. "We're getting out of here."

Fung ran into the hall, overjoyed at the fact that Zhengyi had chosen to save someone, not to mention the fact that she was no longer going to be killed. But that feeling soon left. "Quick, let Xiang out and we'll go!" Fung said.

Zhengyi was still going for the door. "No time," he said, not looking back.

Fung stopped in her tracks. "What?" she cried.

Zhengyi turned to her. "That guy's daughter isn't my problem! There's an army of vicious criminals on their way up here right now!" he yelled. "We just threw the whole plan away for you! We gotta find another passport, and now we have two clans who wanna kill us!"

"How can you leave her? Just unlock the door!" Fung screamed.

The banging on the other door continued. "I can't be looking after her while we try to escape! I don't owe her anything!" Zhengyi snapped. "I—"

"Stop arguing!" Su cried. "That's what's going to delay us!"

On the landing, Chu could hear the argument going on in the corridor above, but he also heard many people below him. Reinforcements were coming. He wondered if he should go stand with his new friends, but…he couldn't. He sprinted down to the fourth floor and hid in an empty room, hearing the Tongs rush up the stairs.

It was too late for Zhengyi and the others to get out now. Tong fighters flooded the corridor. Fu Shan hissed at them. The ground was several yards below Zhengyi and he couldn't easily fight in this confined corridor. He hesitated to use any other sort of bending, since revealing that he was the Avatar was bound to complicate the situation even further. By the time he decided he might really need to use firebending it was too late. There were just too many Tongs. They swarmed over him, Fung, and Su, restraining them all. One of them grabbed Fu Shan by the scruff of the neck and shoved him in a sack. The Tongs tied them up, along with Xiang, and brought them before Tong Suei Sing.

"This is your fault," Zhengyi said to Fung, just before they were all thrown in front of the big boss.

"So," Sing said, setting down a bottle of _huángjiǔ_ on a tray held by a servant, "I heard you guys got a problem takin' orders." Sing motioned away two scantily-clad young women hanging about his shoulders, rose from his chair, and strode toward Zhengyi. He grabbed the boy by the lapel of his yi, yanking him close. Sing drew his golok and raised it high.

He slashed open Zhengyi's yi, revealing the pygmy puma tattoo on his chest. "I shoulda known!" Sing cried. "There ain't no benders as good as you in this whole town who ain't hooked up with a clan before they're thirteen! So what are you, spies?" he asked, pressing his golok to Zhengyi's neck.

Tsi stood in the middle among the clan members who had assembled when they heard some traitors were going to be executed. Most of the dozens of Tong retainers who had captured the three blended into them. Tsi watched the whole thing as Sing exposed Zhengyi's Ban tattoo, and when he saw that ink it was like throwing blasting jelly on a campfire. This boy, like a younger version of himself, whom he had taken under his wing, had been deceiving him the whole time. For all he knew Zhengyi might have been the one who killed his brother! He just about shoved the people in front of him out of his way as he advanced to the front of the crowd.

"Boss! Boss!" he cried "Lemme kill 'im!" Tsi bowed on one knee before Sing. "Please, give me the honor of killin' 'im."

"Yes…" Sing said pensively. "It was your brother, wasn't it? All right. I'll deal with the other three."

Zhengyi struggled to escape his bonds. He couldn't bend without the use of his arms, and without bending he couldn't hope to fight so many people. Tsi drew his cleaver. Sing did the same. He grabbed Fung by the hair. "All of you assembled now," he announced, "bear witness to the fate of those who break the oaths of brotherhood!" He raised his golok, and Tsi pressed his against the edge of Zhengyi's tattoo.

"Wait!" someone in the crowd cried. Once again, the interrupting voice was Heung Chu's.

"Chu, what are you doing?" his father, standing near to Sing's large chair, asked angrily.

"Master Tong, you say no one can beat you at bing jiu in your own house. I…" Chu was shaking. He didn't know whether he was being brave or stupid, but those people Sing was about to kill had shown him more kindness than anyone he could remember, certainly more than his own father. They were the first friends he had had. Something inside him told him to keep talking. "…I challenge you to a game of bing jiu. The stakes will be the lives of the people before you…as…as well as my own."


	12. Chapter 3, Part 4

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 3: The Game

Part 4

Chu and his father had lived with the Tong clan for many years. Chu knew that Tong Suei Sing was a compulsive gambler, and he knew that Sing had gotten bored with winning only money, but couldn't resist a game where people's lives hung in the balance. "And if I win, I also want safe passage out of the city for all of us."

"Chu, stop it!" his father yelled. "Do NOT do this!"

A grin spread across the clan head's face. "You're betting their lives?" He chuckled. "The highest stakes possible…But their lives are already forfeit. They ain't yours to bet. Their lives will be my half of the pot; what about yours?"

"Master Tong, no!" Tsi cried. "You promised I could kill—" Sing raised a hand to silence him. Tsi grudgingly closed his mouth.

Chu thought. "I…I don't know…I could work for you. I'll work in the gambling house, winning money for you."

"All right," Sing said to Chu. "That could work. And hey, maybe if you can win me some real money, I won't even kill you…I'll just make you wish you were dead," he smiled. "By the way, you should add you're dad's life to the pot," he said turning to face Heung Sai. "I intend to make him pay too, for raising such a disrespectful son."

Sai gulped.

"F-fine then," Chu stammered. "Two-out-of-three hands. Those are the terms. D-do you agree?"

Sing laughed again. "I agree. Let's begin."

The crowd parted like the sea before a master waterbender. Chu and Sing walked over to a bing jiu table in the middle of the floor. Zhengyi and the others were roughly escorted over to a position behind Chu's seat.

"What are you doing?" Fung whispered to Chu as she passed him.

"I'm helping my friends," he said. "I may not be able to fight, but I can play dominoes like nobody's business."

The bent-nose woman from the initiation ceremony approached with a stack of tiles. Sing took them from her. As the challenged party, he had the right to act as dealer. He dealt four face-down tiles to Chu and four to himself.

Chu picked his up, and within seconds he had separated his tiles into two hands. Sing mulled this over for a little longer, but soon he separated his hands too. "Ready?" the bent-nosed woman asked Chu. Chu nodded. She turned to Sing. "Ready?" she asked him. He nodded as well. "Show!" she barked, raising a hand. Each of the players flipped their tiles.

Sing had a 5-5 and a 3-4—a score of 7—for his low hand and a 5-6 plus a 6-1, scoring were both pretty high scores. But Chu's low hand was a 2-2 and a 1-3, which scored 8, and his high hand scored a 9, consisting of a 6-6 and a 5-2.

"Eight beats seven! Nine beats eight!" the bent-nose woman formally announced. "Round…Heung Chu!" She said, raising an arm over his head.

Zhengyi watched the game, wishing he had paid closer attention when Chu had explained the rules to him the other day. It had gone too fast for him to follow along and count all those pips. At least he knew who had won.

Sing looked icily at Chu, showing him an emotionless expression perfected by decades of bing jiu. Chu almost started to quake again, but he closed his eyes, took a breath, and stared calmly back at Sing. One hand had passed, and now he had a much better idea of the probability of the tiles he would receive.

Sing did not alter his gaze as he dealt the next eight tiles. Sing looked at his immediately, but Chu closed his eyes and began tapping his fingers on the table in an odd manner. Sing wondered what he was doing.

Inside Chu's mind the probability figures were running a mile a minute. He could see the numbers clearly, as though they were painted on the inside of his eyelids. They were moving, shifting, dancing as gracefully as the finest geishas in the Fire Lord's court. His strategy was shifting with them.

Chu picked up his tiles. He separated them quickly. "Ready?" the woman asked. "N-not yet," Chu said.

The woman turned to Sing. "Ready?" she asked. He nodded. She waited a moment or two, but Chu was not allowed to take much longer. "Ready?" she asked him again. He nodded. "Show!"

Chu placed his low hand, scoring an 8. Sing's low hand only scored a 4. Chu's high hand was a 5-5 and a 4-5, for another score of 9. He had been sure he would win that round, but when Sing placed his high hand Chu unconsciously opened his in dismay. Sing had a 3-6 combined with a special 1-1 tile, which meant the hand scored 11, not 1.

"What happened?" Zhengyi whispered to Su. "I thought nine was the highest."

"Some tiles can form special combinations," she whispered back. "A 1-1 or 6-6 played with a tile that totals eight or nine lets you keep the tens place when tabulating the score."

"This is so confusing," Zhengyi whispered.

Under normal circumstances, when the dealer won one hand and the player won the other, each party simply retained their original wagers and that would be that. But this was a special circumstance. It wasn't as though either of them could take back what they had bet. In this case, Chu knew the official would give a tied round to the dealer, which she did.

"Eight beats four!" the bent-nose woman announced. "Eleven beats nine! Tie round…dealer!"

Chu was not in a position to argue over rules. He could only keep playing. He still had a chance to win.

"So it all comes down to this," Sing said. "A tied game. One hand left. You lose, and I'm gonna cut up all your little Ban clan friends…No pressure or anything," he laughed.

Chu bit his lip in anxiety. He took another deep breath and closed his eyes. After a moment, he opened them, staring right at Sing. Chu knew he could beat Tong Suei Sing. "Are you gonna tell jokes, or are you gonna deal?" he asked defiantly.

Sing laughed harder then ever. "You got some guts, kid," he laughed, dealing the tiles.

Chu picked up his tiles and stared at them for several minutes, breathing heavily. Sing grinned as he picked his up. He held a 2-2, a 1-5, a 3-3, and a 6-2. His best possible hand was a 4. He knew this kid was good. He knew Chu could certainly beat a 4. But Sing's expression never changed, because he was never really nervous. He leaned forward, knocking his right elbow gently against the table. A 6-6 tile, another "special" tile, slipped out of a hidden pocket in his sleeve. Unnoticed by anyone, Sing deftly let the tile slip down his sleeve and into his hand, while simultaneously concealing his 2-2 tile in his left sleeve. In doing this he barely moved at all. Only the slightest flutter of his fingers was seen by the few people in the room who were paying attention. He was a very experienced cheater.

"Ready?" the woman asked Chu. Chu was looking intensely at his tiles. His eyes flashed up to her and he nodded. The woman turned to Sing. "Are you ready?" Sing nodded calmly, still grinning. "Show!"

Sing laid out his low hand, the 1-5 and the 3-3, for a score of 2. Chu put down his low hand, a 3-2 and a 5-5, for a score of 5. "Barely won that hand," Sing said. He placed his high hand down. It was the 6-6 plus the 6-2, which made his score 10. Only a few hands could beat it.

Chu laid down his high hand. It was a 6-6 and another 6-6. A pair.

He grinned broadly. Pairs scored 14 points. Besides that, there were only two 6-6 tiles in a deck. "Looks like you've been cheating," Chu smiled knowingly. He had lived and gambled at the Tong compound for years, more than long enough to figure out that the Mountain Master seemed to win an abnormally high number of games.

Sing started to clap in a slow, condescending way. "Congratulations!" he said. "You beat me fair and square. Good game." He looked up at the bent-nosed woman. "Kill them anyway," he ordered her, as casually as anything.

"What?" Chu cried, standing up and slamming his palms on the table.

"Kill him too," Sing said, pointing to Chu. "And bring me some booze," he added.

"But…but I won," Chu stammered. "What about your honor? You're breaking an agreement!"

Sing shrugged. "Look, I ain't about to let a bunch of spies walk out of here just 'cuz their friend won at dominoes."

"But you cheated!" Chu said. He looked to the assembled clan members. "You all saw it! He cheats! Tong Suei Sing's been cheating all of you out of your money!"

Sing laughed out loud. "I pay all their wages, you moron. I pay for their food and lodging. Nobody cares if I cheat a little. It's the First Rule of Gambling, boy: the house always cheats. And this is _my_ house." He turned to the men holding Zhengyi, Xiang, and the others. "Now, if you please…" he said tersely.

Guxi took out his knife, as did the other men. Before he did anything though, he gently ran his fingers down Xiang's face and around her chin. "It's really too bad," he said. As his fingers approached her mouth, she saw a chance and took it. She clamped her teeth down on his first two fingers.

He swore loudly and started to shake his hand, but Xiang headbutted him in the stomach. He dropped his cleaver. The other Tongs were momentarily distracted by the incident, and Zhengyi also headbutted the one who held him. Fu Shan had already mostly clawed his way out of the bag in which he was trapped. Thinking quickly, Chu leapt over and snatched Guxi's knife. He cut through the cloth that bound Xiang's hands.

"Over here! Free Zhengyi!" Su called.

"Yeah, free Zhengyi!" Zhengyi added.

Chu ran over and cut the cloth around Zhengyi's hands and feet. With that, he was able to move his hands enough to simultaneously erect three spikes of rock to cut the few layers of rope around his, Fung's, and Su's upper arms. As Zhengyi was bending one fighter advanced on him with a knife, but Fu Shan leapt on to the Tong's back, clawing him. As soon as Fung and Su were free, they wasted no time in tripping and throwing the fighters who were holding them a moment ago.

All the other clan members attacked. Zhengyi bent a rock into one of them. "Let's get outta here!" he called, bending a rock into another.

Chu remembered his father. "Dad! Come on!" he cried. Heung Sai ran for the door, still cradling a scroll that had Tong clan financial records on it. Chu turned to do the same. One Tong fighter blocked Sai's way, brandishing his golok. Sai was no fighter either, but his fear caused him to instinctually dodge when the Tong swung at him. Wincing, Sai swung the scroll at the man, landing a lucky shot on the top of his head. The fighter's tongue lolled from his mouth and he fell over.

Tong Suei Sing was now thoroughly annoyed. He cursed the situation. "Forget it!" he yelled to no one in particular, then turned to Zhengyi. "I'll kill you myself!" He stomped his foot and a rock crashed up through the floor. He kicked it at Zhengyi.

Zhengyi set up his stance and used a crane's-beak-hand to shatter the rock before it even reached him. He shifted his feet, taking control of the shards. He blasted them back at Sing and they pinned his clothes to the wall, immobilizing him. Zhengyi raised an earthen formation under his feet to launch himself toward Sing. He removed Sing's own knife from his belt and pressed it to the man's throat. "My friend won safe passage out of the city too," Zhengyi said. "Got any of those passports?"

Sing glared at the boy, defeated and angry about it. "My right lapel pocket."

Zhengyi reached in and removed it. "I should have done this three days ago," he muttered.

Zhengyi made for the door, calling "Su, Fung, I got it!" But Tsi was hot on his heels. Tsi caught up, and was about to drive his knife into the Avatar when suddenly the earth underneath Zhengyi exploded and Zhengyi was thrown against the side wall of the casino. He raised himself up and shook his head, seeing Guxi standing before him in a bending stance. Guxi snarled as he sent a rock careening toward Zhengyi. Zhengyi dodged and sent a crag gliding across the floor at him.

Su punched out a fighter, but behind her the woman with the bent nose was lining up a thrust of her golok. Su heard her just in time, and sidestepped while grabbing the bottom of her right sleeve with her left hand, pulling the cloth taught. As the knife entered the sleeve Su used her left hand to wrap more of the sleeve cloth around it. She twisted her body sideways, pulling the other woman off balance. Su spun with the woman, delivering a roundhouse kick to her back. She fell forward, crashing through a bing jiu table, spilling credit chips and dominoes all over the floor.

Guxi dodged Zhengyi's rock and returned a barrage of three more. Zhengyi shifted his stance sideways and windmilled his arms, calling an earthen wall out of the ground. It swung in an arc, blocking the three stones even as it sank back into the ground. Zhengyi conjured another boulder and spun 360 degrees, adding force to the boulder from his momentum. Guxi raised his own wall, a stationary one. It stood up to Zhengyi's rock, and then Guxi bent the straight wall into a wedge, with the point facing Zhengyi. Guxi fired a strong punch and one half of the wedge sped across the floor toward the boy. Zhengyi barely dodged it, turning his body horizontally as he jumped, making a full rotation in the air. He channeled his momentum into his upper body as he landed, windmilling his arms again, sending another, faster crag crackling out of the ground toward Guxi. This time he couldn't dodge, and was knocked out cold.

Xiang had no formal martial arts training, but she came from a bad neighborhood and knew a thing or two about how to throw a punch. She wasn't strong enough to do much to these thugs, but she was able to take down one with a knee to the groin. Another, a young woman who had been sworn in with Fung and Zhengyi, came at her with a knife. Xiang fought like a tiny crocodile-dog that only shows its teeth when cornered. She landed a light jab on the other girl's face, but it hardly fazed the Tong.

Another fighter stabbed at Fung, but she twisted inside his arm, grabbed it, and flipped him. She turned just in time to see the girl coming at Xiang. Tsi caught sight of her as she ran over to Xiang. He decided he would take care of Fung first, since she was closer.

Just as the female fighter raised her cleaver to strike Xiang, Fung hit her from he side with a simple bull-rush. The fighter fell over and Fung grabbed her wrist, twisting it to force her to drop the knife. Fung yanked her up and swung her face-first into the wall. That Tong was neutralized, but as Fung reflexively swung her arm behind her, due to the recoil of the impact, she felt someone catch it. She turned her head only see Tsi clutching her wrist. She thrust her leg behind her blindly, hoping to hook it on his and trip him, but it was too little too late. Tsi was already violently yanking on her right arm while pressing down on the other shoulder blade, clumsily trying to force her to the ground. He pulled her shoulder too far across her back. There was an audible noise as it dislocated.

Zhengyi had just watched Guxi fall when he saw Fung crash to the ground, crying out in pain. "Fung!" he cried, rushing to her.

He knelt next to her. "What happened?" he asked urgently.

"Girl…save her," Fung panted, gritting her teeth against the pain.

Zhengyi looked to Xiang. Tsi was holding her by the wrist, his cleaver held out to the side and poised to strike. But the Tongs were regrouping, and Fung would be much harder to move now. There wasn't much time. _Fung's so serious about helping that girl_, Zhengyi thought. _She's in so much pain, just because she was trying to help her…_

Just as Tsi tried to swing his arm, he felt rock trap his wrist. He was stuck in almost the same position he had caught Fung in. He turned and, seeing Zhengyi had bent the stone around his arm, exploded. "You!" he cried. He threw Xiang out of his other hand and used it to grab his knife. He slashed once at Zhengyi, but Zhengyi trapped his other hand. Tsi struggled in vain to kick him, but Zhengyi was too far away. He screamed and thrashed in his fetters, spraying spittle as he roared curses at the boy. But Zhengyi didn't move. He looked at Tsi for a long moment, saying nothing. All he could see was Tsi's brother, the man from the other day. He saw the resemblance now, and Tsi was in almost the same position as his brother had been, trapped in rock like that.

"Let's go!" Xiang implored him, tugging him away from Tsi.

Fung lay next to them, still howling. "Help me lift her," Zhengyi said. Zhengyi tried to pick her up by the back of her robe while Xiang lifted her good arm. They did their best but still jostled her shoulder a bit. She let out a sharper cry. "Sorry," Zhengyi apologized half-heartedly, more concerned with getting to the door.

Fung could walk on her own but the pain in her shoulder was very intense, so Zhengyi and Xiang still had to help her hustle to the door. As they rushed out they were joined by Ying Su, and Heung Chu and his father. Fung moaned in pain. They made it through the door and as soon as Zhengyi's feet felt the ground again he laid Fung down. "Watch her, Xiang," he said.

"What—" she started to ask, but Zhengyi was already bending. He raised a large square area of earth underneath their feet and sent it gliding over the deserted street like a magic carpet, swinging his arms as though he were jogging.

He whipped the vehicle into the nearby alley where they had been sleeping and he and Su snatched up most of their camping supplies. Zhengyi scarcely stopped the vehicle.

"Where are you going?" Su called over the rumbling of the makeshift vehicle.

"Outta this city!" he called. He turned his head to look at Fung, moaning and squirming in pain. "But first we're going to pick up Xiang's father."

* * *

Back inside the gambling house Guxi had regained consciousness. He stood up and saw Tsi thrashing in his stone handcuffs. He broke the fetters apart with a swing of his arms, but as soon as Tsi broke free he pushed Guxi out of the way to get out the door. He just caught a glimpse of Zhengyi's earthen carpet and took off after it. Guxi ran to the door and watched Tsi sprint down the street until he was out of sight, but he never caught up with it.

* * *

Zhengyi turned the vehicle sharply. Chu knelt over Fung. "I'm so sorry that this happened to you," he told her. "I…I did my best, but I guess it didn't matter. But I, uh, saw what…what you did." He smiled. "That was really brave."

Fung wheezed through her teeth, but managed vocalize a "thanks." Maybe she even tried to smile.

Then Su crouched next to her. "Can you sit up?" she asked. Su didn't wait for a reply, because she knew Fung could sit up, but she might be worried about the pain and not want to. Su gently lifted her torso. "Fung, Fung, look closely at my face," she said, focusing the girl off of the pain. Su put her hands on both of Fung's upper arms, and stared into the girl's eyes. Suddenly, she pointed off to the side. "Hey, what's that!" she cried. Reflexively, Fung whipped her head in the same direction. She heard a loud pop and the pain in her arm spiked. She screamed as loud as she could, but it was brief.

"What was that?" she yelled at Su.

"I relocated your shoulder," Su said.

"That hurt!" Fung cried.

"Of course it hurts," Chu said pedantically. "Your arm just got yanked out of the socket and jammed back in." Fung glared at him. "…Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"You won't regain full use of it for two, maybe three months. You'll probably need some kind of painkiller for a while."

Fung gritted her teeth as the pain surged again. She supposed Su was right.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of you," Su said. She gave the girl a gentle hug. "Your father would have been honored," she whispered.

Zhengyi brought the earthen carpet to a stop outside Xiang's house. "Xiang, get your father," he said. "Do we need anything else?" he asked the others.

"I need a blanket to make a sling and anything in there that can possibly be used as an analgesic of any sort," Su said.

"What?" Xiang asked.

"Anything to deaden pain," she explained. "Fu zi, dit da jow…if _jiǔ _is all you have then bring it!" Su called after Xiang, who had already rushed into her house. It was several minutes before she came out again, but no one could blame her father for taking his time, since he would be leaving his home for the foreseeable future. Her father emerged with a satchel slung over his back. He handed Su a blanket and a jar of medicinal liniment. He had had a couple around the house to treat his own bruises from Guxi.

As Zhengyi started his earthen carpet up again, Su applied the liniment to Fung's shoulder and proceeded to tie it in the sling. The medicine started to take effect as Zhengyi sent the earthen carpet down another street, straight toward the Inner Wall of Ba Sing Se.

He brought it to a stop just before a transit station, and all seven people on it walked over to the guard station slowly, the weariness from their exertions weighing on them.

The earthbender guards at the station had never seen such a disheveled group of people show up at his station, especially this late at night. Zhengyi's shirt was cut up and he was sweating bullets, panting, doubled over with his hands on his knees. That earth vehicle had taken a lot out of him. It wasn't something he could keep up for long. Su helped Fung along, and though her pain was under control it was still hard to ignore, and her face was contorted from the effort of suppressing it. Su and Heung Sai had rips in their clothes from the fight, Xiang's father still had a large bruise, and the rest of them had dirt splattered on them from the trip.

Rising up from his knees, Zhengyi removed the passport from his pocket. "Let…us…through," he panted.

"Please?" Su added with a smile.

One of the guards took the paper and examined it. The guards looked quizzically at them, then each other. "Umm…well, this _is_ in order," one of them finally said with a shrug. Entering a synchronized bending form, they broke a small arch out of the wall and sank it into the ground. It was only large enough for one person to pass through at a time.

Zhengyi's entourage passed through, but they weren't safe until they passed through the Outer Wall too. It would still take them the rest of the night to walk through the Agrarian District. Su thought the Tong clan might send people after them, and One-Eyed Wu probably still had agents about, but the chance that one of these people would find them was slim. Any agents of the Tongs would have to pass through the Inner Wall, and no one had a reason to look for them in a field of rice paddies in the middle of the night. She couldn't ask anyone to hurry too much anyway. Zhengyi was dead on his feet from the getaway, Fung had a serious injury, and everyone else was worn out from the fight and lack of sleep.

Most of the walk was painfully silent, but after a while Heung Sai decided to speak to his son. "Well…" he sighed. Chu closed his eyes, sensing what was coming. "You really did it this time, Chu. We had a good thing going," Sai said, sounding disappointed and sardonic at once. "I made good money, we had a place to live, and you just go and throw it away for some strangers. You know, I try to provide for you, I try to be a good father, but I guess you don't care about any of that, do you?"

"Yeah, guess not," Chu said in a quiet and dismissive tone, not turning to face his father. Fung could detect a distinct note of sadness in his voice.

"Don't brush me off!" Sai said, even angrier. "Do you even realize what you've done? Our lives in this city are over!"

"I don't want to have this argument right now, dad," Chu said.

"Why don't you explain to me just where you think we're going to live now?" Sai replied. "What am I going to do for work? We certainly can't go back to the Tong clan!"

Chu stopped in his tracks. He had already been through a lot for one night, and maybe all the stress had made him a little crazy, but he figured he might as well make another dramatic gesture. He turned around to face his father.

"You wouldn't even understand," Chu said, slowly opening his eyes, "if I did want to discuss this with you. You haven't paid _any_ attention to me since I can remember, since mom left, at least. This argument we're having now is the most we've said to each other in two years! So we're not going to discuss anything. When we pass that wall," Chu said calmly, gesturing to the looming Outer Wall, and noticeably not stammering or stuttering like he often did, "I'm done with you. We're going our separate ways. And that's it. I'm done." Chu spun around and continued walking.

The others exchanged uncomfortable sideways looks, silently acknowledging the awkward situation.

The short remainder of the walk was silent, and the group passed through the wall the same way. Mu Xiang and her father said they would go and stay with relatives until they could get back on their feet.

Sai went off on his own. "Well, I guess I'll see you," he let out a breath. "…later," he finished.

"I guess so," Chu replied bitterly. His father turned and began walking off.

Tears started to form in Chu's eyes, but he wiped them quickly. He had had a very stressful night.

"Uh…listen, Ms. Ying…I don't want to…to be rude or anything…" he muttered. "I mean, it's okay if you say 'no' to this, but…uh…can, uh…can I come with you guys?"

Everyone else was mildly shocked. "Are you sure you want to come with us?" Su asked. "I mean, are you sure you weren't too hard on your father?"

"Well…" Chu said, "Maybe. I mean, I was speaking from emotion. I'm sill angry. Maybe he deserves a second chance in the future, but I need time away from him first. I just can't stand to be around him right now. I don't want to live with him anymore, at least not for a while." He brushed another tear.

Su sighed. "Well, then—" she began, but Zhengyi tugged at her shoulder, calling her to the side for a private conference. When they were out of Chu's earshot he said, "Look, he's nice and everything, but I don't want to drag _another_ kid around with us everywhere!"

"But he'll make a great ally," Su protested. "He's very brave, you know. You saw what he did back at the casino."

"Uh, I saw him play dominoes," Zhengyi replied sarcastically. "This journey is going to be dangerous. He probably won't even want to go once he finds out I'm the Avatar. And he can't fight, so how's he going to help us?"

"He can do math better than anyone I've ever seen," Su explained, sounding excited.

Zhengyi's jaw dropped in annoyance and he stared at Ying Su with a look that asked how she could be so stupid. "You want me to take him because he can do _math_?!"

"Math is extremely useful, you know," Su replied. Her tone became more serious. "I really think we should take him."

They both looked up at Chu. He was giving a nervous, toothy grin. Zhengyi decided that he did kind of like the guy.

"Fine," Zhengyi sighed. "At least we know he can win money."

They walked back over to the boy. "Chu," Zhengyi said, "you can travel with us, but first you need to know something. My journey is going to be more dangerous than you realize."

"Wh-why's that?" Chu asked.

Zhengyi hesitated. "Look, if you decide not to come with us you can't repeat this," he said. Zhengyi raised a rock with his left hand and ignited a small flame in his right. Chu's eyes widened. "I'm the Avatar." Zhengyi stopped bending, returning the rock to the ground. "Look, Chu, I know you're a meek person, so you gotta be really sure before you agree to come with us, cuz it's gonna be dangerous."

Chu thought about it. Historically, there were many cases of Avatars being hunted across the world by evil people. The friends of the Avatars were almost always in danger too. Chu did not want to sign up for that, but… Zhengyi, Su, and Fung were his friends. He was standing out in the open plain outside the wall of Ba Sing Se, with no home, no family, no attachments to anything anymore. He could do anything he wanted to now. Chu realized this, and he thought very hard for several minutes about what he really wanted to do.

He knew he wanted to help his friends. He knew he should go.

"Well," Chu said, "that's true, but you can look out for me, right? Isn't the Avatar's company the safest place to be for a coward like me?" he smiled.

Zhengyi sighed. He looked at Ying Su. "I guess so," he said.

The three turned west and started out.

After a few moments, Chu spoke up. "Hey, Zhengyi, is it true that you can grow a full beard in three hours if you want, cuz this guy once told me the Avatar could do that, and I thought it sounded weird but then I was like, well, why would he lie about that?..."

Zhengyi sighed. "I need to go to sleep," he said to himself, dragging a hand over his face.

* * *

At the gate to the Ban compound, Shuurai gathered her gleaming black hair into a bun and stuck it with two silver pins to keep it in place. She hefted a pack on to her back. Dr. Teng silently counted out a number of acupuncture needles and placed them into a compartment on his belt. The needles were part of his fighting arsenal. As always, he wore a black bandana over his mouth. Aguta finished bending water out of a koi pond into three skeins he carried. He capped the three, gleefully smiling at what he would do with that water. "Let's do this," Junren said in a calmly decisive tone, clinking his chui together. He holstered them as Wu strode over to his assembled team of assassins.

"Before you leave," Wu said, "I just want to remind you of a few things. First of all, I know none of you are afraid of fighting the Avatar."

That was true. Wu had done his research on all these people before he hired them. Junren was one of the most physically strong people Wu had ever met, as well as a serious dai zhiwu addict. He had nothing to live for except the next hit. Shuurai was a master of the lighting technique of firebending, and a mercenary to the core. She fought for money, pure and simple. Only Wu knew Dr. Teng's story, but suffice it to say that the only thing he had left to live for was to inflict the pain he felt on others. Aguta had been in Wu's employ for eleven years, and all that could be said about him was that he was insane. He had taught Zhengyi waterbending, but he was bored with wasting gang lackeys. Wu knew he had a psychotic compulsion to test himself against someone who wasn't just his former student, but by most estimates the best bender in the world.

"But I still want to remind you," Wu continued, "that the Avatar can be captured, neutralized, even killed, just like anyone else. He's nothing but a kid who happens to be able to bend more than one element. I chose you for your specific skills, and I know some half-trained musclehead teenager is no match for you, Avatar or not."

Wu paced before them, slowly making eye contact with all five of them as he spoke. "I prefer you take the Avatar alive. However," he paused for emphasis, "if he gives you the opportunity, you have my permission to kill him. When you face him, do not hold back." He paused again as he turned and paced in the other direction. "I believe he is traveling with at least two companions. Them, I want killed. Kill anyone who appears to be travelling with the Avatar on sight. Do you understand?" Junren nodded seriously, acknowledging the order the like the soldier he was. Aguta's devilish grin spread wider. Dr. Teng's expression was as enigmatic as ever beneath his mask, and Shuurai did not change her bored, icy stare.

Wu stopped walking and faced his four hunters in the middle of their line-up. "Aguta can tell you that I don't make idle threats, so this is the only thing I'm going to say to you: If that kid ever makes it back to this city I will not only _not_ pay you, I will personally see to it that all four of you are killed. I don't care how good you think you are, I _will_ make it happen." Shuurai just about rolled her eyes at his, despite Wu's added admonition.

Wu turned to address Aguta specifically. "Aguta, even though you failed at the abbey, I'm going to move on and give you a second chance," Wu said. Again, he sounded sympathetic and compassionate, but it was a feint. "I'm an understanding guy. I believe in second chances." Wu grabbed Aguta by the chin and glared at him, lowering his voice again. "But that doesn't mean I believe in _third_ chances. Am I clear?" Aguta nodded. "I want reports by messenger hawk at least once a week, so don't do anything stupid out there. My contacts at the Wall Guard tell me they left the city early this morning through the Fai Zu Transit Point, so get going," Wu said dismissively.

They turned to go. Lucky Cho walked over to Wu's side and spoke up, watching them. "Uh, _d__à gē_," he asked, "why don't you just go with them?"

"Because," Wu smiled, "I still have work to do here."

* * *

"Hey, what are you doing up here?" the wall guard asked the shadowy female figure who rested a booted foot on the very lip of Ba Sing Se's Outer Wall. A cowl and cloth mask obscured most of the girl's face, but the guard could see that she wore glasses. She carried a bow and quiver, but she looked to be no more than sixteen.

She lifted an official-looking paper without looking at him. "I have special dispensation from the Ba Sing Se City Guard to be here," she said flatly.

The guard shrugged and walked away.

Far, far below her and half a mile distant she could see the forms of four people as they walked steadily westward. She narrowed her eyes.

"Ban Zhengyi," she whispered, "prepare to die."

* * *

**Next chapter preview:** Looking for a magnetism teacher, Zhengyi meets an old friend named Louen Heng in a town that supplies dai zhiwu to the clans in Ba Sing Se. He offers to aid her smuggling operation because she is a clan member, but Su and Fung refuse to get involved. Things get worse when Wu's mercenaries show up. Meanwhile, a mysterious girl is tracking Zhengyi, and uncovers the smuggling operation with shrewd detective work. Why does this she want the Avatar dead? And will he be able to beat her deadly precision with the bow?


	13. Chapter 4, Part 1

_Fire. Air. Water. Earth. For thousands of years, the Avatar has been a paragon of righteousness and order to all nations. But must this always be the case? Does the universe choose righteous individuals, or has the world just been lucky so far? _

_840 years before Sozin's War, an Avatar was born into the Hei Chaoliu, organized gangs that all but held Ba Sing Se in thrall. Fifteen years after his birth, civil war has erupted between Ba Sing Se and Omashu over which great city deserves to lead the Earth Kingdom, and the gangs have not abated. Only the Avatar can stop the war, depose the corrupt Earth King, and return balance to the world. But the circumstances of Avatar Zhengyi's birth have lead him to forsake the Avatar's duties for a selfish life dedicated to what he calls "justice" and most call "revenge." The world waits as he struggles to choose between his two roles: the Avatar, and…The Heir of Ban._

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 4: The Daughters of the Black Current

Part 1

Fung was concentrating on the warm feeling in her healing shoulder as the rock she lay on transferred the bright sun's heat into it. It had been a week since her injury, with very little to heal her. Ying Su had been able to gather some herbs to deaden the pain, but those only worked so well, and could only help her deal with the pain, not really reduce it. But when she got the chance to heat it like this, she took it. It helped, especially since they had not yet come to a town and had had to subsist on their own while camping outdoors.

Nearby, Zhengyi grunted. He lay on a bench of earth he had bent, lifting kettlebell-shaped weights that he had also shaped from the rocks. Sweat beaded on his head as he pushed the weights up with effort.

A few feet away, at a curve in the river, Chu and Su washed some fruit they had found, while Fu Shan fished intently. When he had finished, Chu took a bite out of the fruit and brought the basket with the rest of them over to Fung and Zhengyi. Zhengyi used his head to raise a set of earthen holders for the weights and slid off the bench while Su helped Fung sit up. They sat down to eat together, passing the fruit around. No one said much at first, but soon Chu voiced a concern he had been having.

"So, you said this would be dangerous," Chu said to Zhengyi. "How dangerous are we talking, exactly? I mean, what are we up against?"

Zhengyi sighed. "Well, we don't know. With One-Eyed Wu after us, it'll be the entire Ban clan at the least." His tone was casual. He had already come to terms with this reality, but, being the Avatar, it didn't intimidate him much.

Chu's eyed widened in fear, but Su interrupted. "Actually," she said, "if Wu wants to maintain his positive public image, he isn't going to start moving twenty thousand criminals all over the world. Besides, he sent all the clan members at his disposal to capture us at the abbey, and they failed. Wu's not going to use a failed strategy a second time. He's more likely to bring in a small group of mercenaries or some other kind of fighters from outside the gang. Maybe use spies, too. And since there's virtually no limit to what Wu can pay, they're going to be the best fighters around. We have to be very careful about who we trust from now on," she said, making eye contact with each teenager individually. "He won't have the whole clan after us, but in many ways, mercenaries will be worse."

"Pfft," Zhengyi scoffed. "I'm the Avatar. How bad could some mercenaries be?"

"I don't know how _bad_ they might be," Su replied, "but overconfidence is a weakness for anyone, even the Avatar."

Zhengyi mumbled under his breath.

"We'd better keep our friends close then," Chu said, looking at the others.

"What, us?" Zhengyi responded. "We're friends all of a sudden?"

"You…What, you don't think we're friends?" Chu said.

"I've only known you guys for a week," Zhengyi said. "You two are nice and everything, but 'friends' is different than just 'people you hang around with.' "

"That's a little dismissive" Fung said. "You know he saved your life, right? I did too."

"Yeah, and you also constantly argue with me!" Zhengyi barked.

Su rolled her eyes. She decided to let them argue. Unless things started to get out of hand, it wasn't worth it to try and stop them.

"Listen, I'll take whatever help you're willing to give, but Su and I are from the Hei Chaoliu, and you can't understand what that's like. You two can't understand what my life is like or what I've been through. You're just a goody-two-shoes nun. You're around so we have another fighter when things get hot," he said, turning to Chu, "and _you _can't even fight. You're only here 'cause Su thought we needed someone who could do math." Zhengyi's tone was very matter-of-fact; he wasn't particularly trying to offend them, but that was how he saw the others. He wasn't used to thinking about other people's feelings.

Chu looked hurt. "We do, you know," Su noted calmly.

"Whatever!" Zhengyi barked, standing up. "Look, you two can tag along and help me and stuff, but I'm out here to become a better warrior so I can fight the baddest man in the world for control of my father's clan." He turned away from them, looking at the river. "I'm not out to make friends. If you slow me down…" he paused for a moment, then began walking toward the river.

"You know," Su spoke up, pouring some water for herself, "your father was an excellent warrior and he had plenty of friends."

Zhengyi chuckled lightly. "Yeah, and that worked out really well for him."

"Your father had a lot of friends besides Wu. Fung's father Kao, Shou Tu, Chen Da, Fat Yuh…"

"Chen Da and Fat Yuh were around after Wu took over. I used to play with Yuh's daughter. How loyal could they be?" Zhengyi challenged, wheeling around.

"Wu played on the gang's loyalty to Ti Xi to maintain power," Ying Su reminded him.

Zhengyi was silent for a moment. "Wasn't Fat Yuh sent to someplace around here to expand the gang like—what was it?—six years ago?"

"Chen Shi Wan. It's a village at the mouth of this river," Su said. "No reason for us to go there though."

"But Yuh was an earthbender, right? I remember he knew some magnetism techniques. Wu doesn't know magnetism. I should find him and see if he'll teach me!"

"You don't need to go to Chen Shi Wan," Su stifled him. "Magnetism isn't that rare of a skill."

"So? Why put it off?" he replied. "I need to start learning this stuff as soon as possible. You said that yourself."

Su's face became very hard suddenly. She looked at her young charge, appearing to study him. Then she softened. "All right. Let's go to Chen Shi Wan and see what we can find."

Zhengyi's face lit up, excited at the aspect of finally training. "Finally! Let's go!"

"Can I finally get my shoulder looked at there?" Fung asked.

"It's probably the closest place with a proper doctor," Su nodded.

"Fine," Fung said, laboriously standing up on one knee at a time, trying not to jostle her shoulder. "But get this straight: I'm proud to be a goody-two-shoes nun" she said, approaching Zhengyi, "because that means I have principles, unlike you. And if Chu and I start to 'slow you down',"—she made finger quotes to add a mocking effect—"you can go ahead and leave us behind, because you need us more than we need you. Don't forget, I volunteered for this." They glared at each other for a moment. Zhengyi was nearly smiling, completely cavalier to Fung's comments. "And I'm not going to find anybody with you 'til you wash off your nasty weightlifting sweat," she grumbled, walking away. "You stink like a wet hog monkey."

"Zhengyi, Fung needs a new ice pack too," Su told him. Over the last week, they had been treating Fung's shoulder by having Zhengyi bend water around it and freeze it into ice every so often. It helped reduce the pain and swelling. Grudgingly, he did this again now, using water from the river. He also bent some into a skein for later, as he always did.

"Thanks," Fung snapped sarcastically.

"You're welcome," Zhengyi replied in the exact same tone.

Chu was the only one actually hurt by what Zhengyi had said, but he didn't want to say anything. Well, he wanted to, but he didn't.

* * *

As the four of them passed over a ridge, the town finally came into view. Chen Shi Wan was located at the fertile delta of the Shi Wan River, and the river itself cut a gorge through the nearby mountains, so the town was surrounded by cliffs except for where the delta met the sea and the small mountain pass created by the river. The pass was walled off and gated, and recently so, from the looks of the wall.

"Chen Shi Wan is one of the top producers of rice and fish for the eastern Earth Kingdom," Su told the kids as the approached, "especially for the Ba Sing Se war effort."

"What's that huge mansion there?" Fung asked, pointing to a large complex in the distance. It was by far the largest building around. In fact, the rest of the town was almost nothing but huts and hovels.

"The ancestral mansion of the Yumsoon-Hans," Su answered.

"The Yumsoon-Hans? Really?" Fung asked. Everyone had heard of the Yumsoon-Hans. They were one of the richest and most aristocratic noble families in the Earth Kingdom. They had always been major supporters of the current royal dynasty and had many representatives in the Earth King's court.

"I thought they lived in Ba Sing Se," Chu added.

"Some of them do, but this is the land they own," Su replied. "They're the proprietors of the whole town. They run it as their own personal fiefdom…which I guess is what it is."

"Looks kinda run-down," Zhengyi noted as the four drew closer.

"Yes, well, the Yumsoon-Hans are pretty corrupt," Su answered. "Seems like all the nobles are these days. They gouge the rents of the people here. They're all poor farmers or fishermen. Although, actually, the Yumsoon-Hans aren't too bad compared to some other landowners I've seen."

"Ms. Ying, how do you know all of this?" Chu asked.

Su shrugged. "I read. I like to be informed," she answered. "Plus, I did spend some time here several years ago, when I was helping Ti Xi scout places where we could expand the clan."

They noticed guards at the gate, but didn't expect what would happen when Su was suddenly stopped by one of them as they tried to enter. "Hold on there! Mandatory strip search!"

"WHAT?!" Su, Fung, Chu, and Zhengyi cried, almost in unison.

"We've had a lot of problems with dai zhiwu smuggling around here lately. By order of the Yumsoon-Hans, everyone entering and exiting the city is required to submit to a strip search," the guard explained.

"Ew! I'm not getting naked!" Fung cried.

"Gross!" Zhengyi said.

"Hey, it wasn't my idea! You think I like looking at every old hag and fat, hairy guy who comes to town?" said the guard. "Trust me, you're better off if you just get it over with. And anyway, you can keep your underwear on. Go behind the screen there and take off your clothes," he said, pointing to the folding wardrobe screen that had been situated parallel to the wall.

"I'm not doing this," Zhengyi said to Su.

She shrugged. "You wanna learn magnetism or not?" she asked flatly.

Zhengyi grudgingly marched behind the screen. The first guard followed him with severe indifference, followed by the second. "Please remove all loose-fitting garments personal belongings and money and place them on the table thank you," the first guard said mechanically. Zhengyi's head disappeared from view as he bent down to remove his pants. He placed his things on the table, then stood up and spread his arms. The first guard patted him down while the other rifled through his clothes, checking for hidden pockets or any other places he might have hidden a packet of plant. "Turn around," said the first guard again. Zhengyi complied with annoyance, and the guard patted him down more.

While the guards were busy checking Zhengyi, Su realized they would probably confiscate weapons. Since Zhengyi did not like using the golok the Tong clan had given him, he had given it to Ying Su so she could have a knife to use. She discreetly dropped it by the side of the road while the guards were checking Zhengyi. She had no wish to give them an extra reason to be suspicious.

"You're clear, go ahead through," the guard said finally. Zhengyi gathered his things and put his clothes back on. The rest of the group was searched with just as much mutual annoyance. In Fung's case the guard even had to reach under her sling to check for hidden drugs.

When they had all finally changed back into their clothes and entered the city, Chu asked them, "Can we all agree to never talk about that again?" Everyone nodded and agreed.

"Let's find a doctor now, please," Fung said, frustrated. "And some food, too."

Hungry as they were, the four of them sat down for a nice meal at the first decent-looking eatery they came to. They paid with the money they had made while working for the Tong clan, which wasn't much, but far more than the meal cost. Then, after asking around a bit, they found the address of a good doctor and took Fung to see him.

The doctor touched Fung's arm in various places, moved it manually to test where it hurt, showed her some stretching exercises to help it. "It should heal well if you keep doing what you're doing," the doctor told Su, tying a stronger sling around Fung's arm. "I know summer just ended, but if you have any way to get ice you should try to ice the shoulder."

"I think I can find a way," Su said. "When do you think she'll be fully healed?"

"Eh, about two months."

Can you give us anything to help with the pain?"

"Sure. I have some imported herbal remedies here," the doctor replied, going over to his cluttered wooden shelves as Fung sat up. "I can give you a month's supply. After that it won't be fully healed, but it should only hurt if the shoulder itself is hit or jostled or something."

"Thank you, doctor," said Su, bowing.

"Thank you," bowed Fung. The doctor smiled and gave them the medicine, but its cost, plus the cost of the doctor's services, used up almost all the money they had remaining.

So they wandered the town, looking first for a place to spend the night, and second for any sign of Fat Yuh or the Hei Chaoliu.

There was some conversation about Fung's shoulder but it was mostly a silent trek. Chu broke the silence with an observation. "Have you noticed how many kids are flying kites today?" he said. It was true; the others hadn't realized it yet, but almost every kid under twelve or thirteen they saw that day was flying a kite.

"That is odd…" Su said.

"Huh. Must be popular around here," Zhengyi said.

After a few hours they were wandering through a rice paddy out in the middle of the delta, when Fung sat down in exhaustion. "Ugh! I'm so tired!" she groaned. "What are we even doing? We haven't found anything."

"Heh. We agree for once," said Zhengyi. "We can't just wander around with nothing to go on."

Su lifted her hands. "Well, does anyone have a better idea?" Everyone fell silent, trying to come up with a strategy.

A traveler in a conical paddy hat was coming down the road the opposite way. Su and the kids hardly noticed her, expecting her to pass by. But she stopped just in front of them, obscuring her face with her hat. As soon as she caught their attention, she spoke. "I heard from an associate of mine that you have a particular tattoo. Show it to me."

"Who are you?" Zhengyi asked defensively. Almost instinctively, he had taken something very close to an earthbending stance.

The girl—she was about Zhengyi's age—reached for her sleeve. She flipped it up. A pygmy puma roared across her bicep. It was a tattoo very similar to Zhengyi's, but a bit more amateur-looking.

"Watch out!" Su cried. She attacked, while Zhengyi sent a rock at the girl. She dodged, creating an earthen tremor to trip Su. "Zhengyi, stop it!" she cried. "I don't want to draw attention!"

"Yeah, I bet," Zhengyi spat, shifting to a waterbending stance and gathering a water tendril around his arm from the paddy. He lashed at the girl from the left, then the right, but she blocked each strike with a small rock pillar. Fung tried to get a good angle to drive in and attack the girl, but it was difficult because of her shoulder and the narrow road.

"No, I mean I don't want to fight you!" the girl cried. She ripped off her hat and threw it aside to look directly at Zhengyi. Her hair was dark brown, tied in twin braids that fell over her shoulders. Her eyes, too, were a handsome shade of brown. She had lips and cheeks of just the right plumpness, and showed them all off in a cocky sort of half smile.

Zhengyi had to look at her for a minute, but he still recognized her before she gave her name. "Heng?" He asked, almost squinting. "It _is_ you!" he cried, embracing her.

She hugged him back, laughing slightly. "Well, I ain't the Earth King."

Zhengyi backed off from the embrace. "I haven't seen you since I was nine." He turned to introduce her to the rest of the group. "Guys, this is Fat Yuh's daughter, Louen Heng. Heng, you remember Ying Su," he said.

"Hello ma'am," Heng said, bowing.

"And this is Xin Fung and Heung Chu. They're traveling with us."

"Hello," Heng said. She was a little preoccupied though, and as soon as she had greeted them she turned to Zhengyi with a quizzical look. "What are you traveling around for? Are you looking for someone?"

"We're looking for your dad, actually. Can you show us where he is?"

Heng looked down, sadly, and stepped away. "Dad…he was…he was put in jail about a year ago."

"I'm sorry, dear," said Su.

"Yeah. That sucks," said Zhengyi. Fung thought that was a poor choice of words to console someone, but Zhengyi's tone was genuinely sympathetic.

"It's okay," Heng said. A gust of wind rustled the plants in the paddies and chilled her slightly. She put her hands on her arms, but her tone suddenly became lighter, even as she shivered slightly. "We shouldn't stand around out here anyway. If you guys are out of money, I have a place you can stay. Come with me." She turned and began leading them down the path out towards the delta and the sea. "We can catch up when we get inside."

* * *

Between the footprints and trail of displaced foliage his friends left, and the reports of travelers on the road along the river, it wasn't hard for someone with Cai Fa's skills to track them. She knew they were in Chen Shi Wan. That made sense, she thought, since anyone who knew anything about contemporary criminology knew that tons of the dai zhiwu funneled to the Hei Chaoliu was grown in Chen Shi Wan.

Of course, Cai Fa anticipated the border check, but she would attract the least attention by simply submitting to the strip search. She had no wish to relinquish her weapons, but she couldn't fault the Yumsoon-Hans for instituting the checkpoint. _It might be inconvenient, but laws exist for everyone's benefit. If this checkpoint stops one ounce of dai zhiwu from getting to an addict, that would be worth any amount of embarrassment_, she thought as she approached the gate. _And if these guards get fresh, I'll just break their fingers._

As she approached, a guard called out. "Hold on, miss! You'll have to check that—" Cai Fa anticipated what he was going to ask, and placed her bow and quiver of arrows in his hand before he had finished speaking. She would submit to the search, but she did not like being held up. The guard stared a bit at Cai Fa's distinct haircut—at least, it was distinct for a sixteen-year-old girl: a very short military-style cut, as though her head had been shaved clean only a few weeks ago. Fa only looked back over her half-moon spectacles with an annoyed glare, as if to urge him to get on with it. She was used to people staring when she was forced to remove her hood, and this guard remembered himself pretty quickly. "Yes, uh, thank you," said the guard, handing the weapons to another guard who put them away. "If you'll give us your name, I can return these to you when you exit the city."

"Not necessary," Fa replied, staring at the door to the room in the gate house where her weapon was placed.

The guard paused, not knowing why she wouldn't want her weapons back, but that wasn't his concern, so he didn't really care. He went on with the process. "By order of the Yumsoon-Hans, everyone entering and leaving the town has to submit to a mandatory strip search. If you'll just step behind the screen there…"

Cai Fa complied. She removed her cloak first, then a bolt of black cloth draped around her shoulders. Next she removed her brown _q__ípáo_ and her large Ba Sing Se city guard's boots, fully disassembling her odd ensemble. The guard shook out everything, checked it thoroughly for concealed drugs, and finally gave it back to Fa. She redressed quickly but thoroughly. Looking as though her original outfit had never even shifted, she brushed past the guard and entered the city.

She knew the Avatar was here. Now she would have to figure out how to get close enough to kill him.

* * *

As the sun began to set, Louen Heng and her followers began to approach a cluster of thatched huts far out by the delta. This was probably the poorest part of the town, and just about the farthest from the Yumsoon-Han mansion. Although they looked primitive, there were several of the huts, and they were somewhat large for single-family dwellings.

As they trudged along on the network of creaky wooden piers that served as a road out in the marshy delta, Heng asked, "So what did you want to see my dad about anyway?"

"He was a master of the magnetism techniques of earthbending, right?" Zhengyi said. "I'm on a journey to, uh…refine my bending. I was hoping he could teach me but, uh, I guess not."

"He taught me everything he knows!" Heng grinned. "I can teach you!"

"Really? Oh, thanks! That's awesome!" Zhengyi said, extending his open hand.

"No problem," Heng said, slapping his hand, catching it and pulling him in for a half-hug thump on the back. "Ban Clan. We're brothers, right?"

At the back of the group, Su grinned.

They came to hut and Heng opened the door, letting them all enter.

Inside there were two boys about Zhengyi's age playing with a baby boy who was maybe eighteen months old. As they entered, the taller boy scooped up the baby and approached Heng. "Hi baby," he said, giving her a peck on the lips. "Are these the ones you were looking for?"

"Yes," she said. "Tieh, this is Ban Zhengyi. He's the Avatar."

The boy's only reaction was to raise his eyebrows, and incline his head a little, as though he had done more interesting things today than just meeting the Avatar. "Really?" he asked. The shorter boy bowed, however.

Zhengyi didn't know what to do but shrug. "Uh, yeah."

"That's pretty sweet," the boy chuckled. "I'm Chang Tieh, Heng's boyfriend." Tieh was fairly handsome, as much as Heng was pretty. He had nice cheekbones and a mop of black hair that was just messy enough to look good, a lean frame that still showed off the nicely subtle V-shape his torso had.

"This is Tieh's friend Fu An" Heng said, introducing the other boy. "And this—" she said, lifting the baby from Tieh, "charming young man is my half-brother Shen Kuo. I take care of him now that dad's in jail."

Zhengyi introduced his whole group, and the conversation turned to what Heng had been doing since she and Fat Yuh left Ba Sing Se. "Dad was able to establish a small branch of the Ban clan here, with Master Wu's sanction," she explained. "We'd been shipping dai zhiwu from here to Ba Sing Se for a few years, but dad thought it'd be better and cheaper to control it at the source. The soil here is great for growing plant, and they grow so many different kinds of crops here it's pretty easy to disguise it as something else. Everything was okay for a while, but last year they caught dad while he was shipping plant up the river. That's when this big crackdown with the strip search and everything started. The Yumsoon-Hans think they're being real tough, but they don't know anything. I took over the smuggling operation in Chen Shi Wan and we're moving more plant then we ever—"

"Wait, wait—you're the head of a drug smuggling ring?" Fung asked, shocked.

"Well, yeah," Heng said, not realizing why Fung seemed so upset. "I'm the Mountain Master as far as this town is concerned, and smuggling's our main job."

Fung got up laboriously and walked past Heng and Tieh toward the back of the hut. She prodded package in a large, neatly ordered pile of dozens of identical packets. It was something soft and crunchy wrapped in paper and string. "Is that what this is? This is all dai zhiwu?" she said.

"Yes…" Heng replied quizzically, holding her brother.

Fung prickled with anger, but then she just sighed. "I'm not doing this again." She turned back to look at Su and the others. "I'm not going to continue to actively help criminals. I'm not going to associate with a drug dealer."

"Augh! Come on, Fung!" Zhengyi grunted, lolling his head. "Why is everything a problem with you?"

Su knew what would happen next. She could sense Fung poising herself to deliver a comeback, so she interrupted, throwing her arms up between them. "All right, all right, all right, all right," she spattered tersely. "It doesn't matter anyway. All this dai zhiwu ends up in the Ban Clan's hands," she said, looking right at Zhengyi, "and none of us are going to let this stuff keep going to One-Eyed Wu."

"What do you mean?" Heng broke in. "We're Ban clan. This is the Mountain Master's plant."

"Wu killed my father," Zhengyi explained with a deadness in his voice.

"What do you mean? Ti Xi died fifteen years ago," said Heng.

"Wu murdered him fifteen years ago. Zhengyi only found out about it a few weeks ago," Su explained.

Heng's eyes darted around. She couldn't believe it. "No, my dad told me the Du clan killed Ti Xi," she said.

"He had the whole clan tricked. He still does," Su told her.

"But Dad would…would've known…" she looked up to Zhengyi.

"Heng," he touched her shoulder, "it's true."

Heng swore in a whisper. "…And I've been supplying him this whole time." She shook her head.

Zhengyi grunted. "How do you think I feel?" he muttered.

"Don't worry, Heng," Su continued, "That's why we left Ba Sing Se. Zhengyi is on a journey to improve his bending so that he can take revenge on Wu and restore the Ban clan to the Ban family. So there's no need for Fung to leave because you can't ship the dai zhiwu anymore, and once you teach Zheng—"

"Oh, I can't stop shipping the plant," Heng said. "I'll tell my contacts to make sure it doesn't get to Wu, but if we don't sell plant we don't eat."

"It's going to get to Wu anyway," Su said, suddenly more grave. "Any plant dealer you know in Ba Sing Se, Wu knows too, and he can apply a lot more leverage to them than a sixteen-year-old. I've lived with Wu for fifteen years. I know what he's capable of. Unless you want to keep handing money to an oathbreaker who murdered your Mountain Master, you need to stop shipping the dai zhiwu."

"Look, it'll be fine," Heng assured her. "I can make sure it doesn't get to Wu, but if I don't get that plant into the Ba Sing Se everyone in this village, the people I look out for, they're gonna go hungry. Shen Kuo won't have anything to eat," Heng said, letting the child in her arms wrap his fingers around one of hers, still looking pleadingly at Su. "I can't do that to them."

"Yeah, Heng's really smart," Tieh added. "If she says she can do something, she can do it."

Heng looked to Zhengyi. "Actually you guys came at a good time. The big monthly shipment will be soon. We could use some help with that, especially from someone with skills like yours. Maybe you can stay and work with us while you train."

"I'm sorry, but unless you cancel the shipment we can't stay. Kids, let's go," Su said, already heading toward the door.

"Hey!" Zhengyi interjected. "Don't order me around like that. Heng's a clan sister, and she needs our help! I trust her." He crossed his arms. "I'm staying."

"The Avatar is really going to help this girl peddle drugs?" Fung said, less plain angry than she was unbelieving and exasperated.

"I'm the true Mountain Master of the Ban clan," Zhengyi declared. It was the first time he had actually said this out loud, and he couldn't quite suppress a quaver in his voice. It sounded a bit strange to him. _But it's true, isn't it?_ He kept a strong gaze on Fung and Su though. "And I'm helping my sworn brothers and sisters, no matter what you two think."

Fung just shook her head and stepped out of the hut. Ying Su continued to stare at Zhengyi for a long time, but her countenance softened, became contemplative. "You'll do what you think is right, I'm sure. But I saw what it did to you, finding out how you had been used by Wu. Just understand, you may have volunteered to be used again."

"I trust Heng," Zhengyi repeated.

"Thank you, Zhengyi," Heng said. She looked sadly to Su as she continued to gently bounce Shen Kuo.

Zhengyi turned brusquely to Heung Chu. "And what about you?" Chu looked to everyone in the room. His expression conveyed a mild anxiety. He was unsure. After a moment he walked out of the hut to join Fung, followed by Su.

"Fung, go on ahead," Su told her, once she had descended the hut's ragged wooden steps. As Fung complied, she turned to Chu. "Chu, listen. I think Zhengyi's pride has gotten the better of him. I'm concerned he might act without thinking and get into something over his head. I think maybe you should stay with him, you know, just to look out for him." Su gave him a pleasant smile.

As usual, Chu was hesitant. "I know you want Zhengyi to accept you more," Su continued. "He'll respect you if you show that you're willing to commit a crime and help a clan sister." Chu liked Su. He found himself a little hesitant to deceive Zhengyi though, both because it seemed a poor way to start a friendship, and because from what he had seen Zengyi had a bit of a violent streak. "Better yet, tell him you defied me to go back and help. He'll read that as you being tough and strong-willed."

Chu did want to prove, on some level, that he could be an outlaw as much as Zhengyi was. _Hey, I _was_ in the Chaoliu, just like he was,_ Chu thought. But Su's other point was just as important to him: it honestly made him uncomfortable to have Zhengyi alone, without someone from their group. Chu had known Zhengyi for a little less time than Su and Fung had, but he had learned his backstory, and he could tell Zhengyi was displacing feelings about Wu's betrayal into helping this girl. He understood Su's desire to protect her charge. Chu sighed, but finally agreed.

"Good," said Su. "Fung and I will stay in town; we can't leave without Zhengyi anyway. We'll stay near that group of storefronts near the entrance, where the doctor's office was. Just stay with Zhengyi and find us if something happens."

Su joined Fung and Chu reentered Heng's hut. Zhengyi spoke Chu's name, surprised to see him. "I just, uh, went outside to tell Su that she should…should have more faith in her sworn brothers and sisters. I want to help Heng too," he said. "I know I wasn't a soldier for the clan, but I was in the Hei Chaoliu, kind of. I don't have a problem shipping dai zhiwu." Another lie. When he was with the Tong clan, Chu had seen people throw away their life savings on the stuff, leaving their families without income. Like deceiving his friend, Chu felt uncomfortable with it, but Zhengyi was the first friend he had had in years, besides Su and Fung. He just cared more about looking out for him. And he could respect Heng's position. For as many people as he had seen squander their money on plant, he knew just as many for whom the sale of the stuff was their only way to provide for their families. Of course, those people were Tong clan toughs. _Usually the same ones who shoved me or smashed my drum or pantsed me and threw me in mud_, Chu conceded to himself, with inward sarcasm.

Heng looked to Zhengyi. The boy returned the look, then nodded. "Okay," Heng said. "You're in. Let me show you how we run this operation."


	14. Chapter 4, Part 2

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 4: The Daughters of the Black Current

Part 2

Cai Fa knew the Avatar was in this town. The Ban clan was known to have a small presence in this town, ever since Louen "Fat" Yuh had moved here five years ago to take over the clan's dai zhiwu production at its source. Yuh was known to have a daughter of approximately the Avatar's age.

Fa knew all this from city guard reports, the likes of which she had been reading for as long as she knew how. Her father's friends in the Ba Sing Se city guard had given her access to them some eight years ago, after prolonged pestering on her part. Using the same tactic, she had succeeded at prying archery, infiltration, unarmed combat and detection lessons out of them. Before too long, however, Fa had become such an accepted presence at the guard station that her father's friend, Lt. Chang Ah Ping, had told her he was worried about her when she started showing up less frequently in the past few years. She'd been fourteen years old at that time, and had wanted to begin observing Hei Chaoliu operations. "Uncle" Ah Ping had objected, concerned about the danger such an activity posed, but Fa was not one to be dissuaded from something she had put her mind to. No, she certainly wasn't that type.

It was a matter of course that the Avatar and his friends would stop here eventually. They had been passing through several small villages southeast of Ba Sing Se, and Fa had kept hot on their trail, inquiring after them. Her detection skills were serving her well.

As she searched the town, Fa took note of everything even the slightest bit out of the ordinary. She had trained herself to observe her surroundings keenly, based on a methodology her father had developed and left for her in a series of note pages. Her mind had been sharpened by constant practice, to the point where now it would seize upon potential clues and traces of her goals like a hunter's snare.

The children of Chen Shi Wan were the first thing she noticed. She had seen poor farmholds in the Agrarian District, and moreover she had read enough about how agriculture functioned in the northeastern Earth Kingdom to know that at harvest times even very young children were expected to help. Yet she saw at least a dozen sets of children flying kites. There were adults in sight of the children, milling about in the town square and even stooped over, planting, in the nearby rice paddies, but there wasn't a word of disapproval from them towards the children. And _all_ of the children seemed to be playing at kite battles, not just a portion of them. In most settings in which children were given free reign, they would not break into so many separate groups just to play the same game. This kite battle pastime was inordinately popular.

The whole thing was decidedly suspicious. Fa decided she would investigate. _If it's suspicious it could lead to crime, if it leads to crime in Chen Shi Wan it will lead to the Ban clan, and the Ban clan will lead to the Avatar, _she reasoned. Realizing she would need to make a prolonged observation in order to determine any sort of patterns related to this kite activity, she decided to get some tea at a stall and sat down to sip it as she watched.

The object of the game was to cut the other person's kite string with your own. Cai Fa was familiar with the basics of the game. Children played it in Ba Sing Se, particularly during festivals, but not in these proportions. During the second match she watched, between disheveled boy and a girl with mud on her shoes and dress hem, Fa thought she noticed a glinting on the boy's kite string. Their brightly-colored kites fluttered and dived overhead, but Fa watched the strings intently. The strings began to entwine in response the kites' movements. Fa watched them strain against each other for a few moments, then the girl's string snapped and her kite drifted off in the wind.

Fa observed eight matches, all within a few hours. Each time she looked for the telltale glimmer on one of the strings, and although it was sometimes faint, it was there on the winner's string each time. The kites also seemed to always drift off in one direction, towards a single escarpment in the western mountains that bordered the town, but Fa checked the wind and decided this fact could just be chalked up to the wind patterns in the area. There was indeed some kind of hidden pattern or system to this kite game.

The matches were frequent, and Fa noticed one set of girls, who looked about ten years old, left after one match and actually returned with new kites for a second. _They couldn't have the disposable income to buy a new kite that quickly, and it would take much longer to build one_, Fa noted. She let them finish their game—yes, the winning girl's string seemed to shine again—and with that in mind she walked over as the girls watched the loser's kite drift toward the nearby wooded cliffside.

"Wow, you guys are really good at kite flying," Fa said, putting on a veneer of relatably-childlike enthusiasm as she walked over. She might have been overdoing it a bit for girls this old, but she wasn't exactly used to dealing with children. "I like kite battles too, but I don't think I'm as good as you guys." The girls smiled. Fa returned it, realizing she was on the right track. "Can you give me any advice on how to win?"

"The kite game doesn't have winners. My parents just gave me the good kite this time 'cuz Wen-Wen got the good kite last time."

"So…you know who will lose her kite ahead of time?"

"Yeah. The one without the sand on the string is the bad kite." The sudden insight was like a flare going off in Fa's head. _That's what the shine was_, she realized. This was a huge break for her investigation. But the girl didn't pause, because of course she didn't find anything she did to be out of the ordinary. "Flying kites is part of our chores. We don't get our allowance if we don't fly the kites and make sure the bad ones get cut."

Fa needed to investigate where these kites came from, and it was clear the children of the town didn't know where their parents got the kites. But just bolting away would definitely tip the girls off. So she tried to end the conversation casually, saying the girls must think this was their most fun chore. She asked them a little more about their other chores—reminding herself that it never hurts to get more information—and concluded by buying them each a sweet. Fa didn't have a ton of money to travel with, but good guardsmen knew that informants were always good investments.

* * *

"Zhengyi, Chu, meet Mr. and Mrs. Ru," Heng said, ushering them into one of the brick masonwork buildings on the far side of the market square. These sorts of buildings were much less common in Chen Shi Wan than the thatched huts most families lived in, but there were several dozen bunched around a market square. This building was supposedly a tea house owned by the Rus, but there were very few customers or normal tea house accoutrements.

Zhengyi and Chu bowed to the friendly-but-haggard-looking middle-aged couple. "The Rus are some of my best processors," Heng explained. Heng pulled the lapel of Zhengyi's vest aside to reveal his tattoo. "My friends would like to see the cellar," she said.

Mr. and Mrs. Ru led them down a trap door behind the counter. A large cellar had been dug out underneath the tea house, perhaps twenty feet long by eight feet wide. In the center were several long tables placed end-to-end at which about a dozen village peasants were working to process the plant. The place was set up like a craft workshop, with different people working on different phases of a finished product. Several workers stripped the leaves off of recently harvested plants and put them into glass jars. "The plant is grown out in the marsh in small thickets hidden by other wild plants, so they can't be found by those Yumsoon-Han lackeys," Heng explained. "Each family in my organization is responsible for a few of these thickets, and only they know how to locate them. They bring them here after harvesting. We strip the leaves off and put them in jars for curing. Curing takes six or seven days."

Shelves with glass jars of curing leaves lined the walls, with leaves in various states of readiness. A few workers would remove those leaves that had been fully cured and measure them into even units on balance scales. Then they would tip the scale's contents on to a sheaf of rice paper for the next worker in line. This person would wrap the leaves securely in the paper with very precise and skillful folds, almost like origami. The packets were very small when finished; two or three could fit into a closed fist. Still, Zhengyi knew that each of them was worth several dozen gold pieces on the streets of Ba Sing Se. "We package the dai zhiwu into even units for uniform pricing, and because it allows us to smuggle them more easily," Heng continued. "Now wait until you see how we get the kites past the guard," she grinned. "That's the cool part."

* * *

Fa felt the vibration of the last tumbler clicking out of place. She applied torsion with the other chopstick she had obtained and the lock slid open. _As expected, _she thought. She entered the gate house. _No guards_. There was probably a barracks with sleeping guards somewhere in the gate structure, but this room was just an office. The confiscated weapons were just sitting around a storage room. Obviously, these Chen Shi Wan guards weren't as dedicated as they might be. Fa retrieved her bow and quiver and left, locking the door behind her.

It was dark, almost midnight before Fa had attempted to retrieve her weapon. She now had to make her way down to where the farmers lived, in the huts near the marsh, in order to find out where their children got the kites. Fa had become nearsighted from spending so much time reading while growing up, but with the spectacles another of her father's friends had made for her she had crystal-clear vision. She was an exceptional marksman, as long as she had the spectacles. She had been lucky to get them, too. Optics technology was new, and spectacles could be quite expensive. It was a good thing her father had been so well-liked.

She had also spent time purposely cultivating her night vision, so she could move in the dark with minimal chance of being detected. If a night was relatively clear, like this one was, with a good amount of moon and starlight, she could get around well enough. She was glad to have her weapons back too. She had felt vulnerable without them.

After about a half an hour she got down to the marsh. She moved more carefully now, as she could still hear a few voices and saw lights in some of the huts. She stole towards one of the darkened ones and listened for a sign of habitation, perhaps the breathing of a sleeping family, but no one was there. She grabbed a nearby reed stem and deftly stole inside. She lit the stem with spark rocks she carried, carefully shielding the flame with her opposite hand to obscure it further. The room contained all the raw materials for kites: bamboo tubes, silk squares, adhesive. Most curiously, there was a pile of small, marble-sized rocks on a table. The rocks seemed to become highlighted as Fa took notice of them, filing them into the space in her mind reserved for out-of-place things, things likely to be clues.

Fa reached out to touch one, but her fingers slipped off it. She felt the rock resist as she tried to pull it away from the others. With a slightly harder tug, she was able to get it away from the pile. She experimented with it, moving it farther and closer to its mates. She let it go an inch or so from the pile, and it flew back into place.

"Lodestones," she whispered. _Why are they putting lodestones into kites?_

Her thoughts were interrupted by the voices of three young men approaching the hut she was in. She blew out her makeshift torch and slipped out the door, moving around the hut in the opposite direction from which she had heard the voices.

"Hey, did you see something?" one of the voices said. Fa's muscles tensed. Adrenaline shot through her body. She might or might not have been able to take out these three, but it would completely ruin her plans if she were to be found out now.

"Was someone in the hut?" another said, and Fa heard them break out into a run. She searched for something she could use. Thinking quickly, she bent and scooped up a fist-sized rock on the ground. She tossed it into a nearby marsh pool, a few feet in front of the door to the hut.

"He's in the water!" one of the men cried, and all three went sloshing into the water. They cried out and roused other people in the proximate huts. "Heng! Tieh!" they called. Fa hurried up the road as silently as she could for several yards, then slid off it into the swampy, waterlogged paddies along its sides as more of the smugglers came out to search. A moment later, Fa heard a female voice say "Zhengyi! There's an intruder!"

"I got it!" the Avatar replied. Fa recognized his voice. She saw twin glows from small reddish lights bloom into life in the distance. The Avatar had produced flames to help search the marsh. Her target was only a few yards off…so close…her hand seemed to itch to draw one of her arrows. But it would be imprudent to strike now. The Avatar was formidable enough without a village full of criminal allies. She might get one shot at best, and if she missed, she'd be caught for sure, and then she might never get a chance to kill him.

But she had located him. That was definitely enough for the time being. What she had to do now was get him alone, get close to him. Even as she slogged through the marsh, back towards the main square of Chen Shi Wan, as silently as she was able, her mind went back to her observation of the kite battles the previous day. She saw the kites in mind, how she had noticed that they all drifted off to the same cliff face. The Avatar, the kites, the stones. They all had to be connected somehow…

_That's it!_ she realized. _That's what the lodestones are for!_

* * *

So let me get this straight," Zhengyi said. "The lodestones get packed into the kite skeletons with the plant packets, and we're going to where they end up after the strings get cut and they float away?"

"And the guards don't suspect a thing," Heng added.

Zhengyi whistled. "Heng, you are one smart bean-puff. Wish we had found whoever was creepin' around last night though."

Heng sighed lightly, partly from disappointment, partly from the effort of climbing this hill with her brother in a baby sling on her back. They'd left the town a few hours ago, taking a boat through the coastal swamps and completely bypassing the checkpoint, so that Heng could show Zhengyi to her favorite spot to practice earthbending. It was on top of a cliff overlooking the town, and they had been hiking for a while, but they had almost made it to the top.

"It's okay," she said. "I got men on it."

"You think Tieh needs back up to go meet with the contact?" Zhengyi asked. Tieh and Fu An had left town with them, and in a few hours he would rendezvous with the Ban Clan contact to permanently cancel the order. As Heng's lead enforcer it was his job to handle things like that. "That intruder might have been one of Wu's men."

"How would Wu know we're planning to change buyers already?" Tieh said. "The five of us are the only ones who've even discussed it."

"They only ever send one old guy with a wagon to make the pick up from us anyway," Fu An added. "Usually we have to help him haul the plant halfway to Ba Sing Se."

"Yeah, these two can handle it," Heng said.

Zhengyi was assuaged. "So you're taking us to where the kites end up?" he asked.

"Yeah," Heng said. "When I came up with the idea to use the kites, I brought some of the local earthebenders that my dad had trained up here and we magnetized a fifty-yard radius of the earth on this cliff side.

"So when the kites are cut and float away, the magnetized stones in their bamboo skeletons make sure they end up here?" Chu asked.

"Almost always," Tieh said. "Once in a while we might lose one to a really strong wind or something, but it doesn't impact our profits. And we ain't had one found by the guards yet."

"I gotta hand it to you guys: that really is a clever idea," Chu said. "How'd you come up with that?"

"We had to do something different after my dad was caught," Heng said, grabbing a low branch to help lift herself up the slope. "He was caught smuggling on the water, and after that the Yumsoon-Hans beefed up their security and patrols. My dad's people turned to me to run the operation, but we couldn't keep smuggling the same way. My first idea was underground tunnels, but those have been the standard method for smuggling in the Earth Kingdom for centuries. It's too obvious. First thing the guards would think of. So we did the opposite of smuggling through the ground—we smuggle through the sky."

On the last word, Heng misstepped, causing some small rocks under her foot to slide downhill. Her body pitched backward. Zhengyi thrust his elbows back to create a solid platform of rock under his own feet. He placed a hand gently against the curve of Shen Kuo's body in the sling. His other hand found Heng's hip, and he carefully set her on right footing again.

Heng let out a deep breath. "Whew! Thanks," she said, looking over her shoulder and casting her brown eyes toward Zhengyi.

"I can't let you go bouncing down a mountain just when I was about to get a lesson out of you," Zhengyi joked, grinning. Perhaps there was a bit of bashfulness in it. Suddenly, they seemed to realize in unison that Zhengyi's hand had remained on her thigh. He jerked it away as though some force had been holding it there.

Tieh noticed this. His eyes narrowed.

"Let's get up there," Heng said, turning her gaze forward again.

When they arrived at the top, Heng showed off the view. It was certainly a scenic spot to practice earthbending. It was shaded by trees overhead, but butted up against the cliff overlooking Chen Shi Wan, offering a sort of window on the whole town and delta. "Nice up here," said Zhengyi, placing a foot on the large boulder that formed the lip of the cliff.

"Part of the reason I picked this spot," Heng said, a little proudly. She untied the baby sling that held her brother and asked Tieh to hold him. Tieh, Chu, and Fu An took Shen Kuo off to the side while Heng approached Zhengyi. She fished a few copper pieces out of her pocket and scattered them on the ground. Normally the copper pieces should have rolled and clattered around, but each made a sharp thud and held fast.

"Do you know what makes magnets stick together?" she asked him. Zhengyi shrugged. "_Q__ì_," she replied. "_Y__ī__n_ and _y__á__ng_. Actually, I remember my dad saying it was kind of like the lightning techniques of firebending, or healing in waterbending. You're the Avatar—does that make sense to you?"

"I don't really know anything about that stuff," Zhengyi replied. "I mean, Aguta was my waterbending teacher. You remember him, right?"

"Oh yeah," Heng recalled. "Definitely not a healer," she chuckled. Zhengyi laughed too.

Tieh scowled at Zhengyi and Heng. "Hey, it's your turn," Fu An said, prompting him to return his attention to their and Chu's game of _koi-koi_.

"All right," Heng continued to Zhengyi. "Well, I don't know much about bending theory. All I know is when you do this— " she flipped her arms and a small rock sprung out of the ground—"a rock moves. But I can tell you what I remember from when my dad was training me," she said. "Just like there are _q__ì_ pathways in your body, there are _q__ì_ pathways in the earth. Normally _q__ì_ in the earth just kind of swirls around at random." Heng bent two fist-sized rocks out of the ground and levitate them in front of Zhengyi. She made a short sequence of smooth, swirling motions and the rocks moved around her body. As she finished, she tossed the rocks to Zhengyi. He caught one in each hand. "Those are no longer magnetized," Heng said. "Feel how they don't attract? Now, if we can align the _q__ì_ in the earth, or a part of the earth, so that it doesn't just swirl around but all flows in one direction—" she bent the rocks out of his hands and entered a deeper stance. She seemed to be concentrating harder. Her motions were now equally smooth, but more direct. She swirled her hands back towards her center and then thrust them out again in a spearhand, taking a step each time. Again the two rocks followed her motions in the air before her. She let them go and they fell to the ground as the copper pieces had done. "Pick them up," she instructed him.

Zhengyi moved forward to lift them with his hands, but he found it much more difficult than he expected, as though the rock was stuck to the ground with invisible glue. As he went to pick up the other one, he found it just as hard to lift from the ground, but he was really taken by surprise by how strongly the two rocks were attracted to each other. As soon as he had pulled the second rock from the ground it zoomed right into the other one. It took a good amount of exertion for Zhengyi to pull them apart and keep them that way. "Whoa," he said. He found himself excited and enthused by the sight of an application of bending he hadn't seen before. He had never had any first-hand experience with magnetism during the whole time he had grown up with Wu. And if he hadn't seen it, there was a good chance Wu hadn't either.

"The energy flows from _y__á__ng_ to _y__ī__n,_" Heng explained. "_Y__ī__n_ is receptive and _y__á__ng_ is active, so when the _q__ì_ paths are aligned the areas of concentrated _y__á__ng_ are attracted to the areas of concentrated _y__ī__n_."

"Why are these rocks more attracted to each other than to the ground?" Zhengyi asked, moving them together and apart so he could experiment with the force between them.

"As you become more advanced with this technique, you'll be able to alter the magnitude of the force as you choose," Heng replied. "The magnitude of the ground around here is relatively weak. I made the magnitude of those two rocks stronger. The magnitude of the lodestones in the kites is very strong, even though the stones themselves are small. That's why the coins I brought up didn't fly out of my pocket as soon as we got up here." She paused. "Anyway, let's see what you can do. Why don't you try and demagnetize one of those rocks?"

Zhengyi levitated the rocks, but he couldn't do much more than that. He tried to imitate Heng's movements, but he only succeeded in revolving the rocks around his body almost once before they clunked back together in midair.

Heng gave a little chuckle as Zhengyi shrugged in mock-humility. "All right," she said. "Better start with the basic stances."

* * *

A few hours passed. Tieh and Fu An, both non-benders, had concluded the card game and were now training at knife-play and fist-fighting. Zhengyi took Tieh to be the more capable fighter, since Fu An continuously deferred to him, and he doled out harsh corrections to the other boy. Zhengyi had begun to get the hang of magnetism, but his technique still had plenty of holes.

"No, not so loose. You're not waterbending," Heng corrected him as he tried to pop off a sequence of magnetized rocks from the ground and throw them at a nearby tree as projectiles. "Here. Start in a Rising Platypus-Bear stance." Heng got into the stance and Zhengyi did the same. They had both learned this basic earthbending move years ago under Shi Hua, and they both thought they knew how to do it. But they immediately saw that their stances did not match.

"Your other toe is supposed to be facing forward," Zhengyi told Heng.

"Um, who's the teacher here?" Heng replied. "That toe faces out."

"I'm telling you, it faces forward," Zhengyi said. "Otherwise your balance is all screwed up."

"No, don't you remember when Shi Hua taught us this?" she argued back. "And he put incense sticks under our heels to make sure we didn't put them on the ground?"

"And I kept putting them out with—" Zhengyi started to grin.

"—with firebending!" they said in unison, all but laughing at the antics of their shared past.

"Yeah, until he picked them up to see what was wrong with them, and you blew them up when he had it like two inches from his face!" Heng laughed, clapping her hands. "And he was all sooty! Guy looked like seared possum-chicken! Just two eyes like," she laughed again, and imitated a humorously staccato blinking pattern.

Zhengyi smiled as well, but his expression was clearly less enthusiastic. He enjoyed sharing these fond memories with Heng, and even though he had never actually hurt Shi Hua he felt badly for having treated him like that, in light of the circumstances of Hua's death.

Heng noticed this. "What's the matter?" she asked, her smile fading away.

"Shi Hua was killed helping me…helping me escape."

Heng put her hand on his back. "Zhengyi, I believe what you said about Wu before. I won't let any of our dai zhiwu get to him."

Zhengyi huffed a breath out his nose resolutely. "I know," he nodded. "Thanks."

"Come on," Heng said more cheerfully. "We'd better finish the lesson." She gave him a playful punch in the arm.

He grinned. He gave her a punch back, causing Heng to laugh even as she rubbed her arm. Heng lobbed a few easy rocks at him, giggling. Zhengyi zoomed past them and grabbed Heng's wrists, escalating the play fight. Heng half-laughed, half-shrieked in protest. Zhengyi got behind her and wrapped his arms around her torso, lifting her up off her feet.

Zhengyi was laughing, and the next thing he knew a fist had struck his face. He dropped Heng and brought his hand to his nose, taken completely by surprise. Tieh had positioned himself between Zhengyi and Heng, and apparently had clocked Zhengyi in the face. "Get away from my girlfriend!" he roared.

Zhengyi cursed. "I wasn't doin' anything, you psycho!" he yelled, checking his hand for blood.

"Tieh!" Heng yelled.

"I don't care if you're the Avatar or not! You touch my girl and I'll beat you down!" Tieh swung at him again.

Heng screamed her boyfriend's name again, and burst a lump of rock out of the ground below him, knocking him over.

"Zhengyi is my friend!" she barked, as Tieh propped himself up on his elbows. "We were just playing!"

"Yeah, sure," Tieh spat as he hauled himself up, obviously sarcastic. "You been makin' goo-goo eyes at this jerk since he walked into town."

"I told you Tieh, we're just friends!" Heng said.

Tieh looked back to Zhengyi. "I want him out of here by tomorrow," he said, jabbing his index finger at Zhengyi.

Heng knitted her eyebrows, almost in confusion more than anger. "You don't make demands of me like that," she scoffed. "I run the smuggling operation. You work for me."

"Well your friend and I are gonna have a problem if he stays around much longer," Tieh glared.

Zhengyi raised his fists. "Why don't you try something?" he goaded. "I won't use any bending."

"Zhengyi, please," Heng said sternly. "Let me deal with this." She turned to Tieh "It's almost sunset," she told him with an icy voice. "You're starting to make me mad, and if you don't want me to get any madder just do what I asked you to and meet with the contact."

Tieh continued to hold his angry gaze for a moment, then turned from Heng and Zhengyi. "Fu An!" he called to his friend, who had watched the whole exchange along with Chu. Fu An hastily got up and trotted over to join his friend as they walked away. They started back down the mountain.

Normally this would have given Zhengyi cause to smile, but then, Tieh had just expressed a pretty strong disliking for him. "You sure you trust him to do this?" Zhengyi asked. Normally Zhengyi would have been glad at the fact that Wu was about to ose a supplier, but then, the person in charge of that deal had just expressed a pretty strong disliking for him.

"Tieh has a temper, and he can be a pretty big jerk," Heng said. "But he is loyal. He's worked for my dad and me for years. He's okay. I'm sorry he hit you though."

"It's all right," Zhengyi said. "I want to finish the lesson."

* * *

"Can't believe Heng wants the order changed just 'cuz that guy asked her," Tieh huffed as he and Fu An headed to the rendezvous point a few miles from the town.

"At least we don't have to drag four bushels of plant with us like usual," Fu An joked, but Tieh remained humorless.

"The Ban clan pays good for our stuff," Tieh continued. "I don't know what Heng's thinking sometimes."

Fu An paused. "You think maybe we should…let the order stand?"

Tieh seemed to think it over for a minute, but finally said, "No. I shouldn't disobey Heng. It's that Zhengyi guy I'm mad at, not her."

The two walked on, and Tieh continued to complain about Zhengyi's sudden intrusion into his life. They reached the rendezvous point after about half an hour, but something unexpected met them there. The contact from Ba Sing Se they normally met was a single Ban clan member named Lai-fo and his covered cart. This time Lai-fo was there, but he was talking with four other people.

"Who are they?" Fu An whispered as they approached.

"I don't know. Be careful," Tieh replied in kind.

"Ah, Chang Tieh," Lai-fo said, turning to the boys. "And Hu Fu An. Good to see you again."

"Who are they?" Tieh asked unceremoniously, nodding his head toward the four strangers. He rested a hand on the pommel of the knife holstered at his side.

"They're Ban clan brothers, like us," Lai-fo smiled.

"We're looking for someone who crossed the clan," one of the strangers, the only woman, said. "He's a boy, about your age, kind of short, tattoo on the left side of his chest, probably wearing a green vest."

The woman caught the brief flash of recognition in Tieh's eyes as he realized Zhengyi was their quarry. As Tieh vacillated over this chance to expose his romantic rival, the woman shot a quick sideways glace at Lai-fo.

As much as he wanted to hand Zhengyi over to these strangers, he was sure Heng would never forgive him for it. And besides, they might come after her next for harboring him. "Sorry. I haven't seen anybody like that," he said coldly.

"Why don't you have my shipment like usual, Tieh?" Lia-fo asked, anger creeping into his voice. "What is Fat Yuh's daughter playing at?"

Tieh and Fu An realized that these people knew something was up. They hadn't anticipated four intimidating strangers to accompany Lai-fo. Lai-fo was never going to go away empty-handed unless they _made_ him, and there was no way that was going to happen with these four backing him. Tieh had hoped he might be able to talk his way around Lai-fo, get away and maybe come back with more men, but the strangers had obviously clued him in to what was going on with Heng and Zhengyi. Tieh started to panic, and he could sense Fu An was doing the same. His eyes darted among the imposing strangers. There was no way out now.

Tieh whipped out his knife and swung at the woman who had spoken before. She produced a chain and wrapped it around his arm, intercepting the blow. In a flash, she wrapped another length of the chain around his neck, forcing him to the ground in a combination choke-hold and arm-lock. She placed a foot on the back of his shoulder, straining the joint. Tieh never expected these people to be so well-trained. He had been out of his league from the beginning.

Fu An had drawn his weapon, but had seen his friend get taken down before he had even advanced a step. He turned and sprinted for help, but one of the strangers, an odd-looking man with facial piercings, fired water from the skeins strapped to his back, trapping Fu An in rings of ice. The boy tumbled to the ground in mid-stride. The man formed a fearsome-looking claw out ice around his hand and advanced on Fu An.

"Aguta! Wait!" the woman barked. The man shot her a venomous look, but obeyed. The woman tightened her chain around Tieh's neck. "Tell me where the Avatar is, or I'll turn this guy loose on your little friend," she hissed.

Tieh wasn't about to risk the life of one of his real friends—or his own—for someone he didn't even like. It wasn't like he even had a choice at this point. He was sure this woman was about to strangle him.

Shuurai loosened her chain as she heard him trying to rasp something out. "Yuh's daahter," he wheezed. "With Yuh's daughter. At the Shi Wan delta."

Shuurai released him. "Take us there."

Tieh rose to his knees, propping himself up with one hand while he rubbed his neck with the other. "Wait," he panted. "I can get you close to him." He gulped, still recovering. "But you have to leave Yuh's daughter alone."

Shuurai eyed him. Then she turned to Aguta. "Let the other one go," she said. "We can use them." Aguta grumbled, but liquefied the rings trapping Fu An's body and bent them back into his skeins.


	15. Chapter 4, Part 3

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 4: The Daughters of the Black Current

Part 3

"It's been almost two days," Fung complained to Su as they walked down a market street near the town square and the sun began to set. "We need to do something. I don't want those drugs getting to Ba Sing Se. Not when I could have done something to stop it," she said. "Come on, I thought you were the one with the plans."

"I know, I know. Wu doesn't need any more money either," Su said, appearing to browse the stalls, though she was actually deep in thought. "Zhengyi won't listen to either of us. He's loyal to Heng because he remembers her fondly, and because of how drastically his life has changed recently, he clings to those memories and feelings. We can't leave while he insists on staying here, but we can't just play along with him and deliver a few hundred taels-worth of gold pieces right into Wu's hands. What we need is a way to make him see that Heng can't help him. That girl thinks she's a righteous outlaw, but if she had spent any time around people like Wu and the Mountain Masters in Ba Sing Se she would realize she's just playing gangster. She's powerless against Wu at best. The question is, how to make that clear to Zhengyi?"

Fung almost wanted to just come right out and suggest that the two of them move on to the next town, maybe meet with Zhengyi later when he was done doing…whatever he was doing. Fung could tell Su was right about Zhengyi wanting to relive memories with that girl. She was sure he was staying for that reason at least as much as to learn magnetism. _He's probably trying to get with her too, that jerk._

"Do you know who I am?" a voice suddenly roared from a teahouse they happened to be passing by. An old man stumbled out, spilling a tray of food to the ground. A young man wearing expensive-looking clothes and a decorated sword emerged, followed by two other well-dressed men. "You think you can assault a member of the Yumsoon-Han family and get away with it?" he screamed at the crawling man.

"Please, I didn't mean to!" the old man stammered. "It was an accident, young master, I swear! I didn't mean to spill the tea on you!"

"How do you intend to make amends, old man?" the Yumsoon-Han member sneered.

The man kowtowed, pressing his forehead into the dirt. "My most abject apologies! I can only—"

"Grab him," the Yumsoon-Han told his cohorts, not letting the man finish.

"Have mercy!" the old man whimpered as the Yumsoon-Han retainers each grabbed one of his arms and dragged him back towards the teahouse.

"All right, all right," the Yumsoon-Han man said calmly. The old man sighed in relief. "I'll just take a finger." The old man's expression dropped again. The two retainers pressed his front against the side of the teahouse, while one of them also pressed his left arm and hand against it, splaying the fingers. "I've been wanting to try this sword out," the Yumsoon-Han said, drawing the blade from its scabbard and admiring it.

As he raised the sword, he felt his arm twist behind his back until the torque forced him to drop his weapon. He found himself flipped backwards over someone's back with his arm as the lever. Fung stood over him. She had flipped him without using her injured arm. "You're going to cut off his finger for spilling a drink on you?" she asked, almost more surprised than outraged at his arrogance.

The Yumsoon-Han didn't answer, but just pushed himself up and began throwing punches at Fung. She stepped around two, careful of her shoulder. As his momentum carried him forward she spun and kicked the inside of his knee as she hit him in the neck with her good forearm, sending him to the ground again.

One of the Yumsoon-Han retainers grabbed her good arm, but she twisted it inside his and kicked him in the chest, pushing him away. However, the second retainer threw a roundhouse kick right into her hurt arm just then. It caught her several inches below the shoulder, but jostled her arm enough to hurt badly. She fell to her knees, but the retainer quickly grabbed her ponytail and yanked her up again.

Ying Su gave a disappointed sigh, then rushed into the fight. She would have preferred to avoid a problem with the Yumsoon-Hans. She had seen worse things in the Hei Chouliu than an old man losing one finger, but of course Fung wouldn't let an injustice like that go.

Su ran into the fight, first feinting by swiping her sleeve across the face of the man holding Fung, then following up with a real spinning chop with her other and, and then a spinning kick. He went down.

The other retainer drew his sword and lunged at Fung. Her arm hurt so much she could barely fight. She could only back away from the swipes of the sword.

Su stepped over, drawing the retainer's attention. He thrust at her but she sidestepped it and caught the pommel, twisting it out of his hand. She disarmed his right hand, but he was smart enough to drop the sword and throw an elbow with his left arm before she could twist his arm too much. Su took his elbow in her chest. She fell, but rolled and recovered quickly.

Unfortunately, the Yumsoon-Han man and his first retainer had recovered too. Both had taken back their swords and were holding them out in a guard stance, advancing on Fung and Su. They were trapped, unable to do anything as the second retainer picked his sword up as well. "If we get out of this," Su whispered to Fung, a bit condescendingly, "remind me to have a talk with you about why you shouldn't act as a defender of the weak when you have a serious shoulder injury and no one to help you."

Suddenly, and arrow struck the guard of the Yumsoon-Han's sword, forcing him to drop it. More arrows immediately struck the ground in front of each of the retainers, stopping their advance. A cloaked figure rushed forward, brandishing a recurve bow like a staff. She struck one of the retainers across the face with it before he knew what hit him. She followed up with a knee to his stomach and an elbow to his back as he doubled over. The other retainer swung at her, but she parried with the bow and struck him in the throat and philtrum with a small object in her other hand. He fell over, coughing roughly.

She moved to the Yumsoon-Han, disarming him with strikes to his wrist and elbow, and then twisting him into a kneeling hold. She pressed the object—which Fung and Su now saw was a five-inch wooden cylinder like a dowel—into the man's neck just behind the collar bone. He winced in pain. He attempted to reach for his sword. "Don't," the girl warned, pressing the dowel harder and forcing the man to growl in pain. "Don't."

"Do you know who you're messing with, you little brat?" the man snarled through gritted teeth.

"You are Tu Mo Haishi Yumsoon-Han, son of Ma Su-an Taiming Yumsoon-Han and nephew of Shibu Dingfeng Yumsoon-Han, one of Earth King Jinling's royal censors," the girl stated. "You live in the Yumsoon-Han ancestral manor in Chen Shi Wan. Your personal suite is located in the second side house back from the gate on the left. Some of the latticework on the second window from the left on the front of the house is rotted at the corner. It could easily be broken and an intruder who knew her way around could silently fire a poisoned dart into anyone occupying the bed in that room." Tu Mo's eyes had widened and drifted up to the hooded figure who stood over him. "Now take your men and go back there. And don't bother these people again." She removed the dowel from his neck and released him from the hold. He gave her a dirty look, but ran off after a moment, followed by his cohorts.

The girl turned to Fung and Su. "Thank you," Su bowed. Her eyes were narrow when she raised her head. "Who are you?"

"Call me Fa. I'm here because I can help your situation with the Avatar." She spoke quickly. "You may remember Louen Heng's boyfriend, Chang Tieh. She sent him to break off her organizations contract with the Ban clan of Ba Sing Se, but I happen to know that he failed to do this upon encountering Ban clan agents." She made eye contact with Su. "Meaning you were right about Miss Louen being incompetent. Now, I can expose her to the Avatar, but I need you to help me get close to him."

"How do you know all this?" Su asked suspiciously.

"I'm with the Ba Sing Se city guard," the girl replied. "I've been investigating Chen Shi Wan and the smuggling operation for months. Now I'm ready to shut it down, but I need the Avatar's help."

"Aren't you a little young to be a city guard?" Su asked. Her tone was much less cheerful than it was when she had first thanked the girl.

"That's why the smugglers would never suspect me," Fa said.

"So why would a member of the city guard assault a member of one of the most prominent families in Ba Sing Se?" Su pressed further.

"Because you're more useful to me than he is. My goal is to stop the smugglers, not to let the nobles run amok."

"You put your duty to the people above sucking up to the nobles? Doesn't sound like any guardsman I ever heard of," Su quipped.

Fa rolled her eyes. "Very funny. Now do you want my help or not?"

This girl didn't miss a beat in concocting these cover stories, but still, Su was sure that's what they were—stories. But she knew nothing about this girl yet. The girl was obviously well trained in different forms of combat, and apparently had some sort of training in memorization or observation—perhaps not unlike Su's own skills. Su knew this Fa would be a dangerous enemy either way, but just refusing her help would turn her against them and make her an enemy anyway. But if they allowed Fa close to them, Su might be able to figure out the girl's real motivations, which would give Su leverage against her if she proved to be an adversary. And where this girl fought with arrows and wooden pegs (apparently), Su's weapon of choice was leverage. If she had an ulterior motive it might be dangerous to allow her around Zhengyi and the others, which seemed to be her goal. But this girl seemed be just as dangerous from a distance, and if Su accepted her help it would at least let her keep an eye on Fa. Su knew first-hand the truth of the old saying about keeping enemies close.

Plus, there was the remote chance that she honestly wanted to help. But Su knew never to count on that.

"All right," Su said. "We need to get Zhengyi away from the smugglers. Fung," she said, turning to the injured girl, "we're going to have to pretend we've changed our minds about helping the smugglers, but before any drugs actually ship Fa will show Zhengyi that Heng broke her promise and didn't change the order. Is that right, Fa?"

Fa nodded. "When Mr. Chang returns, he's going to try to get Zhengyi alone. He's particularly going to try to separate him from Heng. If we press him on why they want to do this in front of the others we'll catch him in a lie."

"Why are they going to try to do that?" Fung asked.

"There are four assassins sent by the Ban clan on their way here right now," Fa replied, "including a man you may know by the name of Aguta. Tieh agreed to sell Zhengyi out to them for Heng's safety."

Su and Fung's faces flashed into urgent expressions. "All right, we need to go _now_," Su said. She and Fung took off in a rapid walk. With a quick adjustment of her quiver and some other gear, Fa followed.

* * *

"Zhengyi!" Su cried, arriving at the threshold of Heng's hut. "Where's Zhengyi?"

"Su?" Zhengyi asked, walking around from the back of the hut. "Relax," he said curtly. "I'm right here. Why'd you come back? Gonna lecture me again?" He stopped in front of her and crossed his arms.

Su was comforted by the sight of Chu and Heng following Zhengyi from behind the hut. Zhengyi hadn't been left alone.

Su calmed herself. "We've changed our minds about helping Heng."

"That was fast," Zhengyi said, incredulous. "Why do you want to help all of a sudden?"

"I realized, as much as it would hurt Wu to have his main source of income completely removed, it would be more of a blow if he were to find that income spread among his enemies in the other clans. Even if Heng just went into business for herself, I'm sure it would drive him crazy if he found out he was outdone by a little girl—no offense, Heng," Su said, throwing in an apology for the reductive term. "I just weighed our options. Fung agrees."

Fung nodded resolutely.

Zhengyi thought it did seem like something Su would do—weigh options, take time to plan and then decide. He was less sure about Fung, but from what he had seen she tended to defer to Su's judgment, even more than he did.

"So who's this?" Heng asked of the unknown girl beside them.

"This is—" Su began.

"Fa," Fa interrupted. "I'm just a traveler looking for work here. I ran into Miss Ying and Miss Xin and they said they could introduce me to someone who could give me a job."

Heng noticed Fa's bow. "What do you do, security stuff?"

Fa grinned. "Pretty much."

Fa, Heng, and Su suddenly took notice of the tamping of feet coming down the road. They all looked to see Tieh returning. He was hustling down the road, slightly out of breath. "Hey Heng," he said as he approached. He tried to peck her on the cheek, but she moved her head, having none of it. "You broke off the contract?" she asked sternly.

"Of course," Tieh smiled. "Me and Fu An had to smack him around a little. And of course he threatened reprisals, but I doubt that'll happen."

"I'd like to see them try to get Ban fighters past the Yumsoon-Han patrols," Heng said, softening her expression toward Tieh. Su could barely restrain herself from clapping her palm over her face in exasperation at the girl's naïveté.

Tieh turned to the three women. "What are they doing back?" he asked.

"They changed their minds about working with us," Heng told him. "We were about to decide whether to let them into the organization." She looked to Zhengyi.

"It's up to you. It's your operation," he replied.

Heng was mainly concerned with what would please Zhengyi. She liked having her old friend around, and his skill and loyalty were a great boon to her organization. Even though he seemed to be annoyed with them now, Heng thought letting them in would be a good conciliatory gesture toward Zhengyi. Besides, they already knew a lot about her operation, and it would be better to keep them close.

"Well I trust you," she told Zhengyi, "and I think you've known them long enough that we can trust them." Heng wrapped her hand around her opposite fist as she faced Su and the others, but bowed only slightly. "I know you might still feel a little uncomfortable, but please believe me that you are helping a lot of people in this village by working with us."

Su returned the gesture. "Well, we hope so," she said earnestly.

"Now to figure out where to put you guys," Heng said. "We can always use more enforcers, so Fa, you can work with Tieh. Now, with you two," she said to Fung and Su, "I'd like to use your experience with the Ban clan somehow…."

Tieh turned to Zhengyi as she spoke. "Hey, Zhengyi, look," he said, sounding sheepish, "I wanted to apologize for hitting you. I was a jerk, and I shouldn't have hit a clan brother."

Zhengyi was a little surprised. He hadn't really expected this, from Tieh, especially since he had begun to acknowledge to himself that he might actually be developing feelings for Heng. He still didn't like Tieh, but Zhengyi liked to think he knew a thing or two about girls, and he was confident that he could let Tieh drive Heng into his arms with his boorish behavior sooner or later. That is, as long as he didn't look like a bigger jerk by doing something like refusing an apology. He had seen how their fighting had upset Heng earlier, so he wasn't about to instigate another one. He kept his aloof expression, as though he were doing Tieh a favor by accepting his apology. "Okay," Zhengyi said, "just don't do it again. That hurt, ya know," he said, conceding a little smile and touching his nose.

"Yeah, I'm real sorry," Tieh said. "But I'm pretty much Heng's bodyguard too, not just her boyfriend. I'm not used to having new people around her all of a sudden. Well, that's no excuse, but I hope you can understand."

"Yeah, okay," Zhengyi conceded. "But like she said, we're just friends," he lied. "We've known each other for a long time. Sworn brothers aren't supposed to fight over girls anyway."

"Exactly," Tieh said. "How about you and I go up the Rus' place? I'll buy you a drink."

"Yeah, okay," Zhengyi said. "Let's see what Heng says."

"Uh, I actually meant just you and me. If we're going to be working together, I think we oughta try hanging out without her around, you know?"

Zhengyi didn't think Tieh would try to pick a fight against the Avatar with no backup. And he could definitely take him if he did. He didn't see a problem taking him up on his offer. "All right, sure," he agreed.

"Cool," Tieh said. "Hey Heng," he addressed her. She was still talking with Fung, Fa, and Su about how they could help. "I'm taking Zhengyi up to the Rus' to patch things up. We'll be back in a few hours."

"Oh, good," Heng smiled. "You two ought to get along. Chu and I will talk with Su and Fung about how to deal with the Ban clan."

"Why don't you go with them, Heng?" Su said. "We'll be fine here. Chu can catch us up."

"Well, they sort of had a fight earlier," Heng explined. "No one got hurt, but I think Tieh's right. They ought to talk without me around."

"Nah," Su said, waving a hand. "Go with you're friends. It's fine."

Tieh clenched his jaw unconsciously. He felt he might start sweating. "No, I want to discuss things with you two," Heng said. She turned to Zhengyi and Tieh. "Hey, you could take Fu An though. Where is he anyway?"

Tieh shrugged casually. "Went home," he said.

"All right, don't worry about it. You guys go ahead," she said, turning back to Su, intending to begin a conversation about the Ban clan.

"Why do you want him alone, Mr. Chang?" Fa said pointedly, bringing everyone else to a halt.

"What?" Tieh replied. Fa was already sensing shifts in his tone, eye movement, and breathing that gave away his deceit.

"Why are you so insistent that you and he go alone?" she asked again, icily.

"Heng told you. What, do you think I'm tryin' to kiss 'im or something?" Tieh protested, trying a joke.

"Tell them what really happened when you met the Ban contact," she pressed him further.

"I beat him up and sent him packing!" Tieh shouted. "Who do you think you are anyway?"

"Tell them about Aguta and the other mercenaries," she said.

"Aguta?" Zhengyi interjected.

"Tell him, Tieh," Fung added. "We know." This was anther instance where Su might have preferred a less direct confrontation, but she couldn't have let Zhengyi alone under any circumstances. She thought she might have to rethink her decision to hang around unstable teenagers so much though.

"Who's Aguta? What are you talking about?" Tieh roared.

"You never broke off the contract," Fa said. "You and Fu An encountered four Ban clan mercenaries when you went to meet Lai-fo. You offered to bring the Avatar to them in exchange for Heng's safety."

"Oh, right," Tieh sneered. "Meaning Heng doesn't know how to run her organization, which is conveniently what you two said in the first place," he said, pointing to Su and Fung. "See, Heng? They're lying. They don't want to help us. They never trusted you. They just made up some story about me helping the Ban clan. They just want Zhengyi back with them. They're trying to break up the smuggling operation."

Before any of the women could protest further, Zhengyi broke in. "I knew it!" he said. "You guys never trusted Heng. You never even gave her a chance. You judged her," he said to Fung, "and you flat-out dismissed her," he told Su. "Heng runs her clan just fine! Wasn't it enough to just turn your backs on a clan sister? You have to come back and lie to my face about her? Just leave or go back to Ba Sing Se or whatever you want to do. I'm staying here with my real friends. At least Heng and the Chen Shi Wan smugglers understand loyalty."

Su was frightened for Zhengyi's life. She dropped all pretense. "We're not lying! You're in danger! Wu sent assassins, just like I said! They're in the town now!"

"Then I want my _real_ friends at my side, not people like you! Just get out of here!" Zhengyi said, waving his hand and stomping into Heng's hut. Fu Shan looked up the three women sadly, but turned and followed his friend inside.

Heng remained outside. She looked angry, and a little hurt. Perhaps something in her did care what Su thought of her. "I think you should leave," Heng said calmly, "before I have to call my enforcers to escort you out of town."

Heng had a lot of people at her disposal. The three women knew it was no use to try and fight the whole town. Su knew Fa and Fung were already thinking about how to progress with their original plan of waiting elsewhere and keeping tabs on the Avatar. Before they turned to go, Su made eye contact with Chu in a very grave stare and nodded twice, slowly and deliberately. Chu made a brief nod of acknowledgement back to her. "I—I'm with Zhengyi!" he announced, and bounded into the hut rather hurriedly.

Heng and Tieh watched the three head back up the hill. "Well…" Tieh sighed. He put an arm across Heng's shoulder. "Forget it, babe," he said, stroking her arm. "We have the Avatar on our side now. Everything will be okay from now on."

Heng turned and gave him a brief but soft kiss. "Thanks," she said.

Heng went and collected Shen Kuo from behind the hut where he was playing, and then joined the others inside. Zhengyi was just sitting at the table, pouting with his chin in his hand. _He does brood a lot_, Heng thought briefly. "Are you all right?" she asked him.

Zhengyi grunted, then puffed out some air. "Yeah…" he sighed.

"Shen Kuo, big brother Zhengyi is sad," Heng said enthusiastically to the toddler in her arms. "Cheer him up. Do nice-nice," she urged. Shen Kuo reached down and started touching Zhengyi's head with an open palm, something between a pet and a slap. Heng giggled. "Do nice-nice," she repeated. Zhengyi chuckled lightly. Chu and Tieh smiled too.

"What do you think?" Tieh asked. "Still want that drink?"

"Eh…" he muttered, toggling his hand to indicate his indifference.

"That's okay. With them gone, I need to talk to you guys about setting up contacts in Ba Sing Se," Heng said, setting Shen Kuo down to play with Fu Shan. "Got any ideas?"

Zhengyi looked at Chu with a cocky smile. "Think we have any ins with the Tong clan?" he joked.

Chu chuckled a little. "Not likely," he said.

"Well that sounds like a story," Heng said. "What happened with you guys and the Tong clan?"

Zhengyi and Chu recounted the story to them, each adding bits of their own point of view by turns. Zhengyi had some choice things to say about Fung and Su, after what had just happened, but Chu tried to ameliorate their images in the story. They helped each other form the narrative, and Chu even got in some jokes that made Zhengyi and the others laugh. It was the first time he had really seen Zhengyi soften this much, and the first time he thought his decision to stay with him in Chen Shi Wan was starting to pay off. Zhengyi took Fu Shan in his arms during the course of the story and comforted himself by stroking his animal guide. He started to feel better about an hour later, when the story was finished.

"I'd better put Shen Kuo to bed," Heng said, noting the fading light outside. The sun had almost set.

Tieh seemed impressed by the exploits Zhengyi described in the story. "You know, that got me thinking," he said. "You might be able to help with something I noticed about the formation of the delta," he told Zhengyi. "It could make the huts here vulnerable. Let me show you. Maybe we can figure out some kind of defense with your help."

"Is it far?" Zhengyi said, standing up. He didn't relish the awkwardness of spending time alone with his romantic rival, but Heng would definitely like it better if he acted cooperative.

"Not really," Tieh replied. "Maybe fifteen minutes."

"All right," he said, following Tieh out the door. Fu Shan scampered out after his friend.

Tieh made conversation with Zhengyi as the walked past the water, mostly about fighting. He asked several questions about bending and fighting against benders, explaining that he might expect the Avatar to have some special insight. "You got a lot of enemies being the Avatar though, don't you? The whole Ban clan, now the Tong clan… Boy."

"Yeah, it's not all it's cracked up to be," Zhengyi replied.

"Do you ever worry about your friends?" Tieh asked. "That you're bringing trouble to them?"

Zhengyi grunted. "Heng's my only friend. Chu and that girl I came with can leave whenever they want. They probably ought to."

"I was talking about Heng," Tieh said. His tone became slower, more serious. "You know, I don't like you that much, but I could have tolerated you for Heng's sake. But I can't let you put her in danger."

Zhengyi barely had time to wonder why Tieh had started talking like this when a geyser of water burst out of the river and struck him. It threw him to the ground. He opened his eyes just in time to roll out of the way as a _ch__ú__i_ held by a massive man smashed down where his head had been. Zhengyi delivered a sharp kick to the man's hand and struck the earth under his own body with both his hands, causing it to incline until it pushed him up to a standing position. He threw a punch right into the side of Junren's face, but it seemed to have no effect. In fact, Zhengyi was surprised to find he had hurt his own hand, and he shook it in pain as he withdrew it. He felt several small pricking sensations in his arm, and looking down saw several needles sticking out of it. He brushed them off as an old man wearing spectacles and a bandana over his face lunged at Zhengyi, striking with his second knuckes, the way Wu had done before when he had blocked Zhengyi's chi. Zhengyi was flustered but dodged, warding the man off with fire blasts. He spun and saw Aguta fire off a barrage of icicles. Zhengyi erected a wall of earth just in time. The icicles stuck in its surface. "Fu Shan, get help!" he cried. Fu Shan skittered off, back towards Heng's hut.

"Where's Fu An?" Tieh said.

"We tied him up and left him on the road, just north of the gate. I'm sure the guards will find him before any animals do," she grinned, sprinting toward Zhengyi.

She ran past Aguta and scaled Zhengyi's improvised wall using the icicles as steps. She vaulted over it and blasted fireballs at him as she leapt through the air. Landing, she produced a whipchain and struck at him with it. Zhengyi avoided its lash, and let it wrap around his forearm to gain control of it. As he struggled with her Junren came at him from the side. He quickly popped a large rock out of the ground and kicked it at him. The woman continued the tug-of-war over the chain, and Zhengyi quickly realized she was winning. He called two more rocks out of the ground and dropped them on to the chain, preventing her from pulling on it. Zhengyi freed himself. He was already exhausted, but Aguta was already beginning another attack. Zhengyi called out to Tieh, cursing him, but Tieh had already retreated, waiting in the distance for Wu's hunters to finish the Avatar.


	16. Chapter 4, Part 4

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 4: The Daughters of the Black Current

Part 4

"You know, that story got me thinking," Heng said to Chu as she finished bundling her brother down for the night, "that you could really help out with keeping the inventory count straight. The revenue numbers too."

"I guess I could do that, but how are you keeping track now?" Chu asked. "You must have someone doing that already."

"Yeah, we keep our records okay, but most of my people can't even read. Even I only know basic arithmetic. But with you on the team we could restructure our inventory and pricing system as needed to compensate for daily changes in the market back in Ba Sing Se."

Suddenly Chu's ears pricked up. "Do you hear rumbling? Like earthbending?" he asked Heng.

"Tieh said he might ask Zhengyi to show him some techniques or spar. It must be that," she said, shrugging it off. Then she snapped her fingers. "Oh, actually you should teach my people math. Then we could have a bunch of people keeping the books instead of just one," Heng said, smiling at the sudden insight. Chu was barely paying attention to her at this point, sure something was going on with Zhengyi. Heng continued to be awash in bright ideas. "And you could teach their kids too. Oh, the parents would like that. That would reinforce their loyalty. You know, the Yumsoon-Hans don't make any effort to provide education to the peasants, so if I—"

Suddenly Fu Shan appeared in the hut, pacing and making pained mews. Momentarily it bit Chu's pant leg, tugging him.

"Zhengyi's in trouble!" Chu said. "I knew it! Fu Shan wouldn't leave him otherwise!"

Heng hadn't even considered the possibility Zhengyi could be in danger in her town. Chu had kept his guard up a bit, but she had paid absolutely no mind to the claims that girl had made about Tieh. She was very surprised by this turn of events. "What?" she said

"Something's wrong. You go find him, I'll get Su and Fung," Chu ordered, zipping out of the hut.

Chu ran up the road toward the town square as fast as he could, trying to keep pace with Fu Shan. Fortunately, Su and Fung had been expecting this and had not gone far. Still, Chu was panting by the time he got to them.

As soon as Su saw the frantic, winded boy, she knew what had happened. "Chu? Zhengyi's in trouble, isn't he? Tieh got him alone, right?" Chu nodded. "Where are they?"

"I don't know," Chu huffed. "They're on the bank somewhere, past Heng's hut."

"It's gotta be some of Wu's people. Let's go," Su said, taking off.

For a minute, Fung caught herself thinking _Why should we help?_ But there was no time for a debate like that. Zhengyi had treated her badly, but if he really was being attacked by assassins sent by Wu, like Su had predicted earlier, then he could be in serious danger, and she wasn't about to let him die. She took off after Su.

"Where's that other girl?" Chu asked, running alongside Su.

"She just left. Said she had to see to something," Fung answered.

* * *

Heng ran down the bank of the delta in the direction Zhengyi and Tieh had gone. She saw Zhengyi fending off four people. Tieh was walking away from the scene, coming towards her. She ran up to him. "What's going on?" she cried.

"It's all right," he said, taking her hand. He took her hand as though he were going to hold it, and Heng thought he was going to try to comfort her. But spun behind her, forcing her arm behind her back and kicking her in the back of one of her knees, dropping her into a kneeling position. He immediately produced a sash and bound her hands together behind her back.

"What are you doing?" she screamed, thrashing.

"This is for your own good, Heng. I'm doing this for you."

"You _did_ make a deal with the Ban clan!" Heng realized. "It's just like that girl said!"

"I did it for you, Heng!" he yelled back. "Look!" He grabbed her head, forcing her watch Zhengyi battling the four hunters. "The Ban clan sent them! You want to mess with the Ban clan? You want to cut off their main plant supplier just 'cuz some stranger asked you to? This is what happens! And that's just four Ban clan agents. Do you think you could stop them if they wanted to shut us down, or kill you? I had to make a deal with them to undo _your _mistake!"

Heng thrashed more and swore at him. "Once they kill Zhengyi they'll leave us alone. You'll thank me for this later, Heng," Tieh said. He pushed her over and grabbed her legs, attempting to bind them with another piece of cloth.

Heng couldn't move her wrists, but she flexed her fingers, calling a small mass of rock out of the ground to strike Tieh. As Tieh recoiled, Heng rolled and moved her leg, summoning another sharp mass of rock. She sat up as it burst through the ground, cutting the sash that tied her wrists. She leapt up. "Thank this!" she spat as she stamped the ground and kicked a rock right into Tieh's chest. He hit the ground and rolled. Heng rotated her stance ninety degrees to one side as she swung her fists in a circle in front of her. A mass of earth rose up and fell on Tieh, pummeling him to the ground. Heng rotated her feet the other way and repeated the motion, burying Tieh up to his neck in another wave of earth. Tieh struggled to free himself, shaking his head and cursing Heng. Noticing his head was now conveniently located at foot-level, Heng kicked him square in the face and ran to help Zhengyi.

Heng rushed over, calling Zhengyi's name. As she ran to get to him she leapt in the air and executed a forward flip. She called three rocks out of the ground with her landing, and quickly sent them each toward a different attacker with three separate kicks.

"Heng! Watch out!" Zhengyi called, riding an earthen wave as he blasted flames at the large man. "They're Wu's guys!"

Heng noticed the woman making a circular motion with her hands just in time. She somersaulted away just as a flash of blue lightning leapt toward her. "Woah," she breathed. She sent a column of rock speeding towards the woman. Shuurai shattered it with the whipchain she wielded. Heng fired several more at the woman, only to have them all shattered.

Suddenly Aguta swore as an arrow caught him in the arm. A barrage of arrows fell near the other three hunters, stifling their movements. Fa emerged from the nearby reeds, with her bow drawn and an arrow nocked. She held her weapon in a way Zhengyi had never seen before: she held a bundle of eight arrows in the pinky of her left hand, against the bow itself. She held the bow drawn with the thumb of her left hand.

As Fa stared down the hunters, Shuurai noticed shouts coming form the direction of the huts, barely a half-mile away. She could see them in the distance, and the villagers gathering near them and starting to mobilize. "They're flanking us!" Shuurai barked to her comrades, assuming Fa also had some backing her up. Shuurai knew she and the others were powerful, but they would have a hard time fighting dozens of armed villagers as well as the Avatar. "Stay on them! I'll trash the huts to make a distraction!" She took off running, leaving Fa, Zhengyi, and Heng to the others. Heng immediately chased after Shuurai, realizing her people were in danger.

At Chu's urging, the villagers were arming and beginning to gather outside their huts, preparing to help Heng and Zhengyi. Shuurai fell upon their homes before they could react, firing balls of flame into them. In a matter of seconds several of the wood-and-straw huts were burning, and the villagers panicked at the sight of their homes being engulfed. Heng caught up to Shuurai just as she lobbed a fireball into Heng's hut through the door. "Shen Kuo!" Heng shrieked, redoubling her speed and bounding straight into her now burning house.

Zhengyi, with fireblasts of his own and help from Fa's bow, was able to put some distance between himself and the other hunters and rush after Heng, with Fa following. He shouted her name as he saw her rush into the burning hut. The fire crackled loudly as a piece of the straw roof tumbled down. Just in time, Heng burst through the doorway in a flying leap. She landed in a crouch, slowly uncurling her body to reveal Shen Kuo, crying emphatically, but safe in his sister's arms.

As Zhengyi took in the destruction around him, he started to realize that it was all because Wu's people had tracked him to Chen Shi Wan. He had brought them here.

Fa, catching up behind Zhengyi, looked around and noticed some of the small punt boats beached nearby. "Zhengyi, they're after you," she said urgently, giving voice to Zhengyi's own concerns. "Get in one of the boats; we'll draw them off." Zhengyi took notice of the boats as well. He yelled curses at Shuurai to get her attention, adding a sarcastic invitation to try and fight him again.

Heng saw Zhengyi about to depart and leapt into the boat with him, still carrying her brother. "Go!" she said. Zhengyi began to rotate his arms at the shoulders, bending the water at the stern of the boat in order to propel it forward at great speed.

Shuurai jumped into another boat, joined momentarily by Aguta, Dr. Teng, and Junren, who had caught up to Zhengyi. Aguta did the same as Zhengyi, driving the boat forward with waterbending.

The two crafts were now engaged in a high-speed chase, flying down the Shi Wan River. They were moving so fast their bows constantly kicked up a light spray. Zhengyi attempted to navigate the boat around the curves and twists of the river. Heng helped him, crying out "Left! Bank more!" Shuurai stood at the prow of the hunters' boat, launching a barrage of fireballs at her fleeing quarry, hoping if not to hit them, at least to throw off their steering and make them crash. Fa returned fire with her arrows.

Zhengyi whipped the boat around a curve and the river suddenly grew more narrow, the banks steeper. He almost fell off as the keel barely scraped some obstruction under the water and jostled all aboard. Heng caught notice of a tree hanging over the river, some of its roots emerging from the steep bank. "Fa, hold him!" she called over the whipping wind, handing Shen Kuo over to the other girl. "I'm gonna end this!" She carefully stood up in the boat. As the hunters' boat rounded the curve, Heng took a deep stance and reached out her arms, drawing them back toward her body with great effort. The earth slid out from under the tree, bringing it crashing down on to the hunters' boat. Zhengyi saw them scream and dive off, so he did not stop propelling his own boat for several minutes.

Finally exhausted, he landed the boat on a sandy bank. He stumbled off of it and collapsed on to his hands and knees, panting. Heng did the same, taking a seat on a rock. She saw that this one of the places where her people secretly grew dai zhiwu. Clusters of the plants were scattered all along the bank. Fa placed Shen Kuo on the ground, and he scampered over to Heng, burying his head in her side to calm himself. Heng patted his head.

Fa took a few breaths herself, then whipped another cluster of arrows out of her quiver and fired straight for the Avatar's head.

Heng raised an earthen wall just in time. The arrow thudded into it. "What are you doing?" she cried.

Fa wheeled and fired at her. Heng raised shielding rock formation to cover herself and her brother. Fa bolted around the wall toward Zhengyi firing one, two, three arrows at him. Due to her unorthodox method of holding the arrows she was able to fire them incredibly fast, every two seconds or so. Zhengyi sprang out of the way, rolled, and fired off a rock that caught the third arrow.

"My name is Cai Fa," she announced, nocking her next arrow and circling Zhengyi, "daughter of Cai Di of the Ba Sing Se City Guard. My father's life's work was to bring the Ban clan to justice. In order to do this he developed a new method of police work. He joined the clan under an assumed identity, and worked his way up until he joined Ban Ti Xi's inner circle." The girl was glaring at Zhengyi venomously, but spoke coolly and directly. His eyes locked on to hers at the mention of his father's name. He had never before heard of any such incident as the one Fa described. "But he was found out," she continued. "His identity as a guardsman was exposed. So the clan eliminated him." She paused, drawing in a deep breath. She saw the Avatar down the shaft of an arrow, but still looked deep into his eyes. "Ban Ti Xi tied my father to a chair and cut his throat." She loosed her arrow.

It flew off in a curve to the left. It hit the ground and skittered across a few feet to a spot on the ground where Heng's fingers penetrated it. She was kneeling over the ground with her hand thrust in. She rose with a grin.

"Magnetized the ground," Fa observed.

"Ya like that?" Heng sneered.

"Not really," Fa huffed, putting the rest of her arrows, now mostly useless, into her quiver. She rushed at Heng with her bow. Heng sent a tremor towards her, but Fa sprang off it expertly. Heng was already firing off a rock at her. Fa knocked it away with her bow, whipped the bow around her body like a staff and knocked away the next rock. She landed a side kick on Heng's hip, then spun around to throw a reverse kick. Heng caught her leg and threw her to the ground. Fa fell, but quickly swept Heng's own legs out from under her, dropping her to the same position. They began to grapple, rolling back and forth over each other. Heng pressed her palm into Fa's cheek, grinding the other side of her face into the dirt. Fa freed her arm and smashed her fist into the side of Heng's face. As Heng recoiled Fa was able to stand.

Fa's fight was with the Avatar, and she needed a way to get this girl out of the picture. She saw her way in Heng's young brother. Fa sprinted over and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. As Heng and Zhengyi advanced carefully on her, Heng held the screaming toddler aloft. "Louen Heng," she called, "stand down or I'll throw him in the river!"

Heng froze. "Don't hurt him," she pleaded, keeping her voice calm, since she was unsure of what Fa might do to her brother. "He's just a baby. He's not a threat to you." She slowly extended her arm. "Please don't hurt my brother."

Fa looked at the boy she held. She turned to Heng. "The Ban Clan is very selective as to whom they show mercy." She heaved Shen Kuo into the river.

Heng screamed his name and immediately dove in after him. Fa and Zhengyi locked eyes again. Fa leapt at him and swung her bow. Zhengyi sidestepped it and threw a flaming punch. Fa flourished her cloak across her body, dissipating the flames. Taking advantage of the brief visual distraction of the cloak's movement, Fa hammered her foot down on the side of Zhengyi's knee. He sank to his knees and in a flash she had the concave side of her bow pressing on his throat. She was garroting him with the bow. A brief acknowledgement of this girl's sheer speed crossed his mind. He had fought some hard-core Hei Chaoliu fighters in the past few weeks, not least of which were those assassins he had been tangling with minutes ago. So far, Fa had hurt him worse than any of them.

Zhengyi's fingers fumbled around at the bow on his throat, but quickly realized it was useless. Fa only pulled the bow tighter. Zhengyi could hear Heng splashing in the river. He could only hope she would be able to save her brother. He was unable to turn his head to see, but behind him Fa plucked an arrow from her quiver and held it in her fist, ready to plunge it into Zhengyi's neck.

Zhengyi knew he had to free himself, but also decided Fa ought to pay for bringing Shen Kuo into this. Feeling his anger, he gathered the earth next to him in a hard shell around his fist and and swung behind him, hoping to hit Fa's legs.

Fa leapt back just in time, but was forced to let go of her bow. Zhengyi took one gasp of air, but quickly realized he had no time to recover. Fa rushed back toward him, brandishing the arrow like a dagger. Zhengyi exploded a rock underneath her, but again she sprang away expertly.

"What do you want with us?" Zhengyi roared, throwing another rock.

Fa dodged it. "I've been watching you for a long time, Ban Zhengyi." She glared at him. "I know how you were raised in the Hei Chaoliu. I know how you think. You're willingness to help drug smugglers just confirms it more. An evil Avatar is the worst threat the world has ever seen." She pulled a second arrow out, wielding it in her other hand. She spoke directly, her voice low-key. "I'm going to save the world from you." She lunged at him.

Zhengyi grew angrier, whether it was because of what she had done to Heng and Shen Kuo, or just the threat she had made, he didn't know. He fired off more rocks, but she continued to avoid them and close the distance. She was remarkably agile. Zhengyi transitioned to waterbending, aiming a torrent of water from the river right for her. She rolled to avoid it, but he circled it around and back, turning it into a small loop that began to close around her arms. As fast as he could, Zhengyi compelled the water to freeze. Fa was faster still, breaking the stream with a crescent kick just before the ice could extend from Zhengyi to her. Continuing with the kick's momentum, she spun and nearly drove an arrow into Zhengyi. Just in time, he somersaulted backwards. He noticed she had changed grip on the arrows from forehand to backhand seamlessly. He and Fa had now almost exactly changed positions from where they were a moment ago.

Suddenly they both heard a splash and gasping. Heng had recovered Shen Kuo from the river. The toddler was bawling, but Zhengyi was relieved to hear it, because it meant he had full use of his lungs. Heng was heaving and coughing, but Zhengyi's eyes stayed locked on Fa. He was determined to protect Heng from her.

Immediately the sound of the Avatar's name being called reached them. "Zhengyi! Zhengyi!" It was Su's voice. Those of Chu, Fung and others from the village soon joined it. They were calling for Heng as well.

"Here!" Heng cried, barely finishing the word before she coughed violently. She called back to them again before her voice gave way to a hacking sputter.

Fa looked Zhengyi dead in the eyes again. "Avatar Zhengyi," she addressed him. He realized something obliged him to listen when she spoke, maybe because something in him had hooked on to this incident with both of their fathers. He couldn't be sure at the moment. "I am going to kill you, " she said.

Zhengyi's friends and several others landed another of the smuggler's boats a few feet away. Without a waterbender, they hadn't been able to travel nearly as fast as the other two boats.

Mr. Ru was the first one to step off. Hoping to deter the rest of the crowd from persuing her, Cai Fa whipped an arrow into Mr. Ru's shoulder like a dart. Fa threw the other one into her quiver and sprinted up the river bank. Zhengyi growled and threw one last fireball in her direction. It missed and dissipated, but he thought he discerned some of her silloughette in its light. He turned to tend to Heng, as those villagers who weren't already helping Mr. Ru were doing. One or two tried to follow Cai Fa, but Zhengyi could already tell they would tire long before they caught up to her.

* * *

Zhengyi and his friends returned to Heng's hut, to help take care of her and Shen Kuo. The villagers had been delayed in putting the fires out, but apparently they had manged to control them. Many of the huts were in various states of disrepair, like Heng's with its missing roof, but most of the structures were still intact. A few villagers had also stayed behind to hide the incriminating evidence in the huts, and explain to the guards who came down to investigate that the fire was merely an accident.

Heng and her brother both seemed to be okay, but Zhengyi was concerned one or both of them could have swallowed water. If nothing else, they were both exhausted. Shen Kuo didn't stop crying for a while, and Heng was mostly concerned with him. She was fighting sleep, but Zhengyi was kept awake, harrowed by guilt. She finally dozed off when Zhengyi offered to watch over her brother. The rest of the group was staying in Heng's hut as well, and even Fung and Chu had fallen asleep by this time, but Su remained awake like Zhengyi did. She sat on the floor with her back against the wall, directly across from Zhengyi. Zhengyi tried not to meet her gaze, but at one point he noticed her staring at him.

"The plant is still going to Wu," she said, her voice barely audible. She didn't need to be loud. "Next time, you should listen to _me_."

Zhengyi stared off, but made a very subtle nod that he understood.

"And you realize those bounty hunters are going to continue to come after you," Su said.

Zhengyi looked over to the sleeping Heng and Shen Kuo.

The next morning, Zhengyi told Heng that they had to go. It was almost the first thing he said to her.

Heng did not protest. She understood Zhengyi's reasoning. "I don't know what we're going to do," was her only response.

"I put you in too much danger already," Zhengyi said. He and Heng shared the same sad, resigned tone. "Those people were after me. But you can't stop the shipments to Wu." He understood that the people of Chen Shi Wan needed her, and she couldn't leave to go with him.

"I don't want to keep selling to an oath-breaker," she said. Chu, Fung, and Su were making ready to leave a few yards off. Heng caught a glimpse of them. "Su was right. I don't know what I'm doing."

"Don't put yourself and all the villagers in danger over that," Zhengyi urged, although he couldn't muster any enthusiasm for the order. Obviously they both wished Heng didn't have to keep supplying Wu. "Just keep the shipments going. No one can blame you."

"I think I'll have to keep the shipments going so I can keep a low profile with the clan in Ba Sing Se, but I'm going to try everything I can to find a way around this."

Zhengyi gave her a weak smile. "All right," he said. "What are you going to do with Tieh?"

"He's tied up in the Rus' basement right now. My guys are going to put a few packets of plant in his pockets and leave him outside the guard station tonight. I'm sure they'll take good care of him," she joked half-heartedly. "I heard they picked up Fu An too, so Tieh will still have him to kick around. He'll be getting out of jail around the time I think I'll be able to stand to see his face again."

Zhengyi managed a very small laugh. "After I kill Wu, and his hunters, and I can stay in one place for a while, I'll come back and see you."

Heng nodded. Zhengyi gave her another, stronger smile. He shouldered a pack of food the villagers had given them and turned to get on a boat with the others. He tapped on his leg for Fu Shan to follow after him.

Heng watched them go, poled along in the punt boat by one of her enforcers for few moments, but suddenly ran several steps after them down the riverbank. "The Ban Clan of Chen Shi Wan will serve our true Mountain Master!" she called to Zhengyi, curling her left hand around her right fist in a promissory gesture. Zhengyi stood up and returned the intimation.

Soon the enforcer dropped his five passengers off a short way down the river. Following this tributary, they could get further west, into the Earth Kingdom's interior, and there were a good number of villages along the river in case they needed to resupply.

Fung saw that the place where they had been dropped off was still within the purview of the Chen Shi Wan smugglers, as it was thick with dai zhiwu plants. Trudging through them made Fung bristle with contempt for that reprobate of a girl who had more influence over the Avater than she—a devotee of Jian Lao, practically a spiritual expert—did. As they stepped out of the last of the plants, Fung took her pack off of one shoulder and pulled out a pair of spark rocks. She made two attempts to light them before Zhengyi noticed the clicking noise and turned around to see what it was.

"What are you doing?" he barked.

Fung didn't pause, striking the rocks together again as she growled, "I'm going to burn this crop. You can help your girlfriend sell poison to murderers all you want, but I'm not going to stand—"

Zhengyi snatched the rocks from her hand and with his earthbending, he crushed them to dust in his fist.

Su was already continuing to walk on. Chu sort of looked at the ground sadly, and then followed her. Fung and Zhengyi glared at each other for a moment, but Zhengyi wheeled and followed after the others, flinging the dust of the spark rocks out of his hands like trash. Fung continued to glare at the back of his head, even as she began to walk after him, but no one had the energy to say anything.


End file.
